ADVICE TO YOUNG MEN, 



AND (INCIDENTALLY) TO 



YOUNG WOMEN, 



^tfciife ano ^tggec JRanfeg of 3Ltfe + 



IN A SERIES OF LETTERS, ADDRESSED TO A YOITH, A 
BACHELOR, A LOVER, A HUSBAND, A FATHER, A 
CITIZEN OR A SUBJECT. 



BY WILLIAM COBBETT. 



PRINTED BY B. BKNSLEY, ANDOVER, 
AND 

PtrBLlSHEDBYJHE AUTHOR, 183, FLEET-STREET, LONDON ; 

AND SOLD BY ALL BOOKSELLERS. 
1829, 



tit 

^4* 






INTRODUCTION. 



1. It is the duty, and ought to be the pleasure, of age and experience 
to warn and instruct youth an$ to come to the aid of inexperience. When 
sailors have discovered rocks or breakers, and have had the good luck 
to escape with life from amidst them, they, unless they be pirates or 
barbarians as well as sailors, point out the spots for the placing of buoys 
and of lights, in order that others may not be exposed to the danger 
which they have so narrowly escaped. What man of common humanity, 
having, by good luck, missed being ingulfed in a quagmire or a quick- 
sand, will withhold from his neighbours a knowledge of the peril 
without which the dangerous spots are not to be approached ? 

2. The great effect which correct opinions and sound principles, 
imbibed in early life, together with the good conduct, at that age, 
which must naturally result from such opinions -and principles ; the 
great effect which these have on the whole course of our lives is, and 
nrust be, well known to every man of common observation. How 
many of us, arrived at only 40 years, have to repent ; nay, which of us 
has not to repent, or has not had to repent, that he did not, at an earlier age, 
possess a great stock of knowledge of that kind which lias an immediate 
effect on our personal ease and happiness ; that kind of knowledge, 
upon which the cheerfulness and fhe harmony of our homes depend ! 

3. It is to communicate a stock of this sort of knowledge, in 
particular, that this work is intended ; knowledge, indeed, relative 
to education, to many sciences, to trade, agriculture, horticulture, ' 
law, government and religion ; knowledge relating, incidentally, to 
all these ; but, the main object is to furnish that sort of knowledge 
to the young, which but few men acquire until they be old, when it 
comes too late to be useful. 

4. To communicate to others the knowledge that I possess has 
always been my taste and my delight ; and few, who know any thing of 
my progress through life, will be disposed to question my fitness for the 
task. Talk of rocks and breakers and quagmires and quick-sands, who 
has ever escaped from amidst so many as I have ! Thrown (by my 
own will indeed) on the wide world at a very early age, not more 
than eleven or twelve years, without money to support, without 



INTRODUCTION. 

friends to advise, and without book-learning to assist, me ; passing 
a few years dependent solely on my own hard labour fov my sub- 
sistence ; then becoming a common soldier and leading a military 
life, chiefly in foreign parts, for eight years ; quitting that life after 
.xeally, for me, high promotion, and with, for me, a large sum of 
money; marrying at an early age, going at once to France to acquire the 
French language, thence to America; passing eight years there, becoming 
bookseller and author, and taking a prominent part in all the important 
discussions of the interesting period from 1793 to j 799, during which there 
was, in that country, a continual struggle carried on between the English 
and the French parties ; conducting myself, in the ever active part which 
I took in that struggle in such a way as to call forth marks of unequivocal 
approbation from the government at home ; returning to England in 1800, 
resuming my labours here, suffering, during these twenty-nine years, two 
years of imprisonment, heavy fines, three years self-banishment to the 
other side of the Atlantic, and a total breaking of fortune so as to be 
left without a bed to lie on, and, during these twenty-nine years of 
troubles and of punishments, writing and publishing, every week of 
my life, whether in exile or not, eleven weeks only excepted, a 
periodical paper, containing more or less of matter worthy of public 
attention ; writing and publishing, during the same twenty-nine years, 
a grammar of the French and another of the English language, a 
work on the Economy of the Cottage, a work on Forest Trees and 
Woodlands, a work on Gardening, an account of America, a book 
of Sermons, a work on the Corn-plant, a History of the Protestant 
Reformation ; all books of great and continued sale, and the last 
unquestionably the book of greatest circulation in the whole world, 
the Bible only excepted ; having, during these same twenty-nine years, 
of troubles and embarrassments without number, introduced into 
England the manufacture of Straw-plat ; also several valuable trees ; 
having introduced, during the same twenty-nine years, the cultivation 
of the Corn-Plant, so manifestly Valuable as a source of food ; 
having, during the same period, always (whether in exile or not) 
sustained a shop of some size, in London ; having, during the 
whole of the same period, never employed less, on an average, than 
ten persons, in some capacity or other, exclusive of printers,* book- 
binders and others, connected with papers and books ; and having, 
during these twenty-nine years of troubles, embarrassments, prisons, 
fines and banishments, bred up a family of seven children to man's 
and woman's state. i 

5. If such a man be not, after he has survived and accomplished all 
this, qualified to give Advice to Young Men, no man can be qualified for 
that task. There may have been natural geriius : but genius alone ; not, 
all the genius in the world, could, without something more, have conducted 
me through these perils. During r these twenty-nine years, 1 have had for 
deadly and even watchful foes, a government that has the collecting and 
distributing of sixty millions of pounds in a year, and also, every soul 



INTRODUCTION. 

who shares in that distribution. Until very lately, I have had, for the 
far greater part of the time, the whole of the press as my deadly enemy. 
Yet, at this moment, it will not be pretended, that there is another man 
in the kingdom, who has so many cordial friends. For, as to the friends 
of ministers and the great, the friendship is towards the power, the in- 
fluence ; it is, in fact, towards those taxes, of which so many thousands 
are gaping to get at a share. And, if we could, through so thick a veil, 
come at the naked fact, we should find the subscription, now going on 
in Dublin for the purpose of erecting a monument, in that city, to com- 
memorate the a:ood recently done, or alleged to be done, to Ireland, by 
the Duke of Wellington ; we should find, that the subscribers have the 
taxes in view ; and that, if the monument shall actually be raised, it 
ought to have selfishness and not gratitude, engraven on its base. Nearly 
the same may be said with regard to all the praises that we hear be- 
stowed on men in power. The friendship, which is felt towards me, is 
pure and disinterested : itis not founded in any hope that the parties can 
have, that they can ever profit from professing it : it is founded on the 
gratitude which they entertain for the good that I have done them : and, 
of this sort of friendship, a£d friendship so cordial, no man ever pos- 
sessed a larger portion. 

6. Now, mere genius will not acquire this for a man. There unust be 
something more than genius : there must be industry: there must be 
perseverance : there must be, before the eyes of the nation, proofs of 
extraordinary exertion : people must say to themselves, " What wise con- 
u duct must there have been in the employing of the time of this man ! 
" How sober, how sparing in diet, how early a riser, how little expensive, 
" he must have been ! " These are the things, and not genius, which 
have caused my labours to be so incessant and so successful : and, though 
I do not affect to believe, that every young man, who shall readthis work, 
will become able to perform labours of equal magnitude and importance, 
I do pretend, that every young man, who will attend to my advice, 
will become able to perform a great, deal more than men generally do 
perforin, whatever may be his situation in life; and, that he will, too. 
perform it with greater ease and satisfaction, than he would, without the 
advice, be able to perform the smaller portion. 

7. I have had, from thousands of young men, and men advanced in 
years also, letters of thanks for the great benefit which they had derived 
from my labours. Some have thanked me for my Grammars, some for 
my Cottage-Economy, others for the Woodlands and the Gardener; and, 
in short, for every one of my works have I received letters of thanks 
from numerous persons, cf whom I had never heard before. In many 
cases I have been told, that, if the parties had had my books to read some 
years before, the gain to them, whether in time or in other things, would 
have been very great. Many, and a great many] have told me, that, 
though long at school, and though their parents had paid for their being 
taught English Grammar, or French, they had, in a short time, learned 



INTRODUCTION. 

more from my books, on those subjects, than they had learned, in years, 
from their teachers. How many gentlemen have thanked me, in the 
strongest terms for my Woodlands and Gardener, observing (just as Lord 
Bacon had observed in his time) that they had before seen no books, on 
these subjects, that they could understand. But, I know not of any 
thing that ever gave me more satisfaction than I derived from the visit 
of a gentleman of fortune, whom I had^never heard of before, and who, 
about four years ago, came to thank me in person for a complete reforma- 
tion, which had been worked in his son by the reading of my two ser- 
mons on drinking and on gaming. 

8. I have, therefore, done, already, a great deal in this Way : but, there 
is still wanting, in a compact form, a body of Advice such as that which 
I now propose to give: and in* the giving of which I shall divide my matter 
as follows. 1. Advice addressed to a Youth; 2. Advice addressed to a 
Bachelor ; 3. Advice addressed to a Lover ; 4. To a Husband; 5. To 
a Father; 6. To a Citizen or Subject. 

9. Some persons will smile, and others laugh outright, at the idea of 
" Cobbett's giving advice for conducting the affairs of love." Yes, but 
I was once young, and surely I may say with the poet, I forget which of 
them : 

"Though old I am, for ladies' love unfit, 
The power of beauty I remember yet.--' 

I forget, indeed, the names of the ladies as completely, pretty nigh, as I 
do that of the poets ; but I remember their influence, and of this influ- 
ence on the conduct and in the affairs and on the condition of men, I have, 
and must have, been a witness all my life long. And, when we consider 
in how great a degree the happiness of all the remainder of a man's life 
depends, and always must depend, on his taste and judgment in the cha- 
racter of a lover, this may well be considered as the most important period 
of the whole terra of his existence. 

10. In my address to the Husband, I shall, of course, introduce advice 
relative to the important duties of masters and servants ; duties of great 
importance, whether considered as affecting families or as affecting the 
community. In my address to the Citizen or Subject, I shall consider 
all the reciprocal duties of the governors and the governed, and also the 
duties which man owes to his neighbour. It would be tedious to attempt 
to lay down rules of conduct exclusively applicable to every distinct 
calling, profession, and condition of life ; but, under the above-described' 
heads, will be conveyed every species of advice of which I deem the 
utility to be unquestionable. 

11, I have, thus, fully described the nature of my little work, and, 
before 1 enter on the first Letter, I venture to express a hope, that its 
good effects will be felt long after its author shall have ceased to exist. 



LETTER I. 



TO A YOUTH. 



12. You are now arrived at that age which 
the law thinks sufficient to make an oath, taken 
by you, valid in a court of law. Let us suppose 
from fourteen to nearly twenty ; and, reserving, 
for a future occasion, my remarks on your duty 
towards parents, let me here offer you my advice 
as to the means likely to contribute largely to- 
wards making you a happy man, useful to all 
about you, and an honour to those from whom 
you sprang. 

13. Start, I beseech you, with a conviction 
firmly fixed in your mind, that you have ho right 
to live in this world ; that, being of hale body 
and sound taind, you have no right to any 
earthly existence, without doing work of some 
sort or other, unless you have ample fortune 
whereon to live clear of debt ; and, that, even 
in that case, you have no right to breed children, 
to be kept by others, or to be exposed to the 
chance of being so kept. Start with this con- 



cobbett's advice [Letter 

viction thoroughly implanted in your mind. To 
wish to live on the labour of others is, besides 
the folly of it, to contemplate a fraud at the 
least, and, under certain circumstances, to medi- 
tate oppression and robbery* 

14. I suppose you in the middle rank of life. 
Happiness ought to be your great object, and it 
is to be found only in independance. Turn your 
back on Whitehall and on Somerset House ; 
leave the Customs and Excise to the feeble and 
low-minded ; look not for success to favour, to 
partiality, to friendship, or to what is called inte- 
rest : write it on your heart, that you will depend 
solely on your own merit and your own exertions. 
Think not, neither, of any of those situations, 
where guady habiliments and sounding titles 
poorly disguise from the eyes of good sense the mor- 
tifications and the heart-ache of slaves. Answer 
me not by saying, that these situations " must be 
filled by somebody "; for, if I were to admit the 
truth of the proposition, which I do not, it would 
remain for you to show, that they are conducive to 
happiness, the contrary of which has been proved 
to me by the observation of a now pretty long life. 

16. Indeed reason tells us, that it must be 
thus : for that which a man owes to favour or to 
partiality, that same favour or partiality is con- 
stantly liable to take from him. He who lives 
upon any thing except his own labour, is inces- 
santly surrounded by rivals : his grand re- 



I.] TO A YOUTH. 

source is that servility, in which he is always liable 
to be surpassed. He is in daily clanger of being 
out-bidden : his very bread depends upon ca- 
price ; and he lives in a state of uncertainty and 
never-ceasing fear. His is not, indeed, the 
dog's life, u hunger and idleness " ; but, it is 
worse ; " for it is idleness with slavery ", the 
latter being the just price of the former. Slaves 
frequently are well fed and well clad; but, slaves 
dare not speak; they dare not be suspected to 
think differently from their masters: hate his 
acts as much as they may ; be he tyrant, be he 
drunkard, be he fool, or be he all three at once, 
they must be silent, or. nkie times out of ten, 
affect approbation ; though possessing a thou- 
sand tiroes his knowledge, they must feign a con- 
viction of his superior understanding ; though 
knowing that it is they, who, iu fact, do all that 
he is paid for doing, it is destruction to them to 
seem as if they thought any portion of the ser- 
vice to belong to them ! Far from me be the 
thought, that any youth who shall read this page 
would not rather perish than submit to live in a 
i state like this ! Such a state is fit only for the 
refuse of nature ; the halt, the half-blind, the 
unhappy creatures whom nature has marked out 
for degradation. 

16, And, how comes it, then, that we see 
hale and even clever youths, voluntarily bending 
their necks to this slavery ; nay, pressing forward 
b5 



cobbetts advice [Letter 

in eager rivalship to assume the yoke that ought 
to be insupportable ? The cause, and the only 
cause, is, that the deleterious fashion of the day 
has created so many artificial wants, and has 
raised the minds of young men so much above 
their real rank and state of life, that they look 
scornfully on the employment, the fare, and the 
dress that would become them ; and, in order to 
avoid that state in which they might live free and 
happy, they become showy slaves. 

17. The great source of independance, the 
French express in a precept of three words, 
" Vivre de peu r \ which I have always very much 
admired. " To live upon little" is the great se- 
curity against slavery ; and this precept extends 
to dress and other things besides food and drink. 
When Doctok Johnson wrote his Dictionary, 
he put in the word pensioner thus: "Pen- 
sioner. A slave of state" After this he 
himself -became a pensioner ! And, thus, agree- 
ably to his own definition, he lived and died " a 
slave of state !" What must this man of great 
genius and of great industry too, have felt at re- 
ceiving this pension ! Could he be so callous as 
-not to feel a pang upon seeing his own name placed 
before his own degrading definition? And, what 
could induce him to submit to this ? His wants, 
his artificial wants, his habit of indulging in the 
pleasures of the table ; his disregard of the pre- 
cept, i€ Vivre de pen". This was the cause-; 



I.] TO A YOUTH, 

and, be it observed, that indulgences of this sort, 
while they tend to make men poor and expose 
them to commit mean acts, tend also to enfeeble 
the body, and, more especially, to cloud and to 
weaken the mind. 

18. When this celebrated author wrote his 
Dictionary, he had not been debased by luxu- 
rious enjoyments ; the rich and powerful had not 
caressed him into a slave ; his writings then bore 
the stamp of truth and independance ; but, hav- 
ing been debased by luxury, he, who had, while 
content with plain fare, been the strenuous advo- 
cate of the rights of the people, became a 
strenuous advocate for taxation without represen- 
tation; and, in a work, under the title of " Taxa+*j 
tion no Tyranny", defended, and, greatly assisted 
to produce, that unjust and bloody war which 
finally severed from England that great country, 
the United States of America, now the most 
powerful and dangerous rival that this kingdom 
ever had, The statue of Dr. Johnson was 
the first that was put into St. Paul's Church ! 
A signal warning to us not to look upon monu- 
ments in honour of the dead as a proof of their 
virtues ; for here we see St. Paul's Church hold-; 
ing up to the veneration of posterity a man whose 
own writings, together with the records of the pen- 
sion list, prove him to have been " a slave of state." 

19- Endless are the instances of men of bright 
parts and high spirit having been, by degrees, 



cobbett's advice [Letter 

rendered powerless and despicable, by their ima- 
ginary wants. Seldom has there been a man 
with a fairer prospect of accomplishing great 
things and of acquiring lasting renown, than 
Charles Fox: he had great talents of the 
most popular sort; the times were singularly 
favourable to an exertion of them with success ; 
a large part of the nation admired him and were 
his partizans ; he had, as to the great question 
between him and his rival (Pitt), reason and 
justice clearly on his side : but he had against 
him his squandering and luxurious habits : these 
made him dependent on the rich part of his par- 
tizans ; made his wisdom subservient to opulent 
folly or selfishness ; deprived his country of all 
the benefit that it might have derived from his 
talents ; and, finally, sent him to the grave without 
a single sigh from a people, a great part of whom 
would, in his earlier years, have wept at his death 
as -at a national calamity. 

20. Extravagance in dress, in the haunting of 
play-houses, in horses, in every thing else, is to be 
avoided, and, in youths and young men, extra- 
vagance in dress particularly. This sort of ex- 
travagance, this waste of money on the decoration 
of the body, arises solely from vanity, and from 
vanity of the most contemptible sort. It arises 
from the notion, that all the people in the street, 
for instance, will be looking at you as soon as 
you walk out ; and that they will, in a greater or 



L] TO A YOUTH* 

less degree, think the better of you on account 
of your fine dress. Never was notion more false. 
All the sensible people, that happen to see you, 
will think nothing at all about you : those who 
are filled with the same vain notion as you are, 
will perceive your attempt to impose on them^ 
and will despise you accordingly : rich people 
will wholly disregard you, and you will be envied 
and hated by those who have the same vanity 
that you have without the means of gratifying it. 
Dress should be suited to your rank and station ; 
a surgeon or physician should not dress like a 
carpenter \ but, there is no reason why a trades- 
man, a merchant's clerk, or clerk of any kind, 
or why a shopkeeper, or manufacturer, or even a 
merchant ; no reason at all why any of these 
should dress in an expensive manner, it is a 
great mistake to suppose, that they derive any 
advantage from exterior decoration. Men are 
estimated by other men according to j their 'fcagsp-* 
city and willingness, to be in someway . or ^oper 
useful ; and, though, with the foolish and vain 
part of women, fine clothes frequently do some-* 
thing, yet, the greater part of that sex are much 
too penetrating to draw their conclusions solely 
from the outside show of a man : they look 
deeper, and find other criterions whereby to 
judge. And, after all, if the fine clothes obtain 
you a wife, will they bring you, in that wife, fru- 
gality, good sense, and that sort of attachment 



cobbett's advice [Letter 

that is likely to be lasting? Natural beauty 
of person is quite another thing : this always has r 
it always will and must have, some weight even 
with men, and great weight with women. But, this 
does not want to be set off by expensive clothes, 
Female eyes are, in such cases, very sharp : they, 
can discover beauty jthough- half hidden by 
beard and even by dirt and surrounded by rags : 
and, take this as a secret worth half a fortune to 
you, that women, however personally vain they 
maybe themselves-, despise personal vanity in men, 
21 * Let your dress be as cheap as may be 
without shabbiness ; think more about the colour 
of your shirt than about the gloss or texture of 
your coat : be always as clean as your occupa- 
tion will, without inconvenience, permit; but 
never, no, not for one moment, believe, thai: any 
human being, with sense in skull, will love or 
respect you on account of your fine or costly 
clothes. A great misfortune of the present day, 
is, that every one is, in his os\ n estimate, raised 
above his real state of life: every one seems to 
think himself entitled, if not to title and great 
estate, at least to live without work. This mis- 
chievous, this most destructive, way of thinking 
has, indeed, been produced, like almost all our 
other evils, by the Acts of our Septennial and 
Unrefoimed Parliament. That body, by its 
s, has caused an enormous Debt to be created., 
and, in consequence, a prodigious sum to be- 



L] TO A YOUTH. 

raised annually in taxes. It has caused, by these 
means, a race of Loan-Mongers and Stock- 
jobbers to arise. These carry on a species of 
gaming, by which some make fortunes in a day, 
and others, in a day, become beggars. The un- 
< fortunate gamesters, like the purchasers of blanks 
in a Lottery, are never heard of ; but the fortunate 
ones become companions for lords, and some of 
them lords themselves. We have, within these 
few years, seen many of these gamesters get 
fortunes of a quarter of a million in a few days, 
and then we have heard them, though notoriously 
amongst the lowest and basest of human creatures, 
called "honourable gentlemen" I In such a 
state of things who is to expect patient industry, 
laborious study, frugality and care ; who, in 
such a state of things, is to expect these to be 
employed in pursuit of that competence which 
it is the laudable wish of all men to secure ? 
Not long ago a man who had served his time 
to a tradesman in London, became, instead of 
pursuing his trade, a stock-jobber, or gambler; 
and, in about two years, drove his coach-and-four , 
had his town' house and country house, and vi- 
sited, and was visited by, peers of the highest 
rank! A fellow-apprentice of this lucky gam- 
bler, though a tradesman in excellent business, 
seeing no earthly reason why he should not have 
his coach-and-four also, turned his stock in trade 
into a stake for the 'Change ; but, alas ! at the 

15 



cobbett's advice [Letter 

end of a few months, instead of being in a coacb 
and-four, he was in the (iazette ! 

£2. This is one instance oat of hundreds of 
thousands ; not, indeed, exactly of the same 
description, but all arising from the same copious 
source. The words speculate and speculation 
have been substituted for gamble and gambling. 
The hatefulness of the pursuit is thus taken away ; 
and, while taxes to the amount of more than 
double the whole of the rental of the kingdom ; 
while these cause such crowds of idlers, every one 
of whom calls himself a gentleman, and avoids 
the appearance of working for his bread ; while 
this is the case, who is to wonder, that a great 
part of the youth of the country, knowing them- 
selves to be as good, as learned, and as well bred 
zs these gentlemen ; who is to wonder, that they 
think, that they also ought to be considered as 
gentlemen? Then, the late war (also the work 
of the Septennial Parliament) has left us, amongst 
its many legacies, such swarms of titled men and 
women ; such swarms of " Sirs " and their 
" Ladies ;" men and women, who, only the 
other day, were the fellow-apprentices, fellow- 
tradesmens' or farmers' sons and daughters, or, 
indeed, the fellow servants, of those who are now 
in these several states of life ; the late Septennial 
Parliament war has left us such swarms of these, 
that it is no wonder, that the heads of young 
people are turned, and that they are ashamed of 






I.J TO A YOUTH. 

that state of life to act their part well in whictr 
ought to be their delight. 

23. But, though the cause of the evil is in 
Acts of the Septennial Parliament ; though this 
universal desire in people to be thought to be 
above their station • though this arises from such 
acts ; and, though it is no wonder that young 
men are thus turned from patient study and 
labour; though these things be undoubted, they 
form no reason why I should not warn you 
against becoming a victim to this national scourge. 
For, in spite of every art made use of to avoid 
labour, the taxes will, after all, maintain only so 
many idlers. We cannot all be u Knights " and 
"gentlemen" : there must be a large part of us, 
after all, to make and mend clothes and houses, 
and carry on trade and commerce, and, in spite 
of all that we can do, the far greater part of u$ 
must actually work at something : for, unless we 
can get at some of the taxes, we fall under the 
sentence of Holy Writ: " He who will not work 
shall not eat." Yet, so strong is the propensity 
to bethought "gentlemen" ; so general is this 
desire amongst the youth of this formerly labo- 
rious and unassuming nation; a nation famed 
for its pursuit of wealth through the channels of 
patience, punctuality and integrity ; a nation 
famed for its love of solid acquisitions and 
qualities, and its hatred of every thing showy and 
false; so general is this really fraudulent desire 



cobbett's advice [Letter 

amongst the youth of this now "speculating" na- 
tion, that thousands upon thousauds of them are 
at this moment, in a state of half-starvation, not so 
much because they are too lazy to earn their bread, 
as because they are too proud ! And, what are 
the consequences ? Such a youth remains or be- 
comes, a burden to his parents, of whom he 
ought to be the comfort if not the support. 
Always aspiring to something higher than he can 
reach, his life is a life of disappointment and 
of shame. If marriage befal him, it is a real 
affliction, involving others as well as himself. 
His lot is a thousand times worse than that of 
the common* labouring pauper. Nineteen times 
out of twenty a premature death awaits him; 
and, aias ! how numerous are the cases in which 
that death is most miserable, not to say igno- 
minious ! Stupid pride is one of the symptoms 
of madness. Of the two madmen, mentioned 
in Don Quixote, one thought himself Neptune, 
and the other Jupiteh. Shakespeare agrees 
with Cervantes; for, Mad Tom, in King- 
Lear, being asked who he is, answers, " I am 
a tailor run mad with pride" How many have 
we heard of, who claimed relationship with 
noblemen and kings; while of net a few each 
has thought himself the Son of God ! To the 
public journals, and to the observation of every 
one, nay, to the " county-lunatic assylums " 
(things never heard of in England till now), 1 



I.] TO A YOUTH. 

appeal for the fact of the vast and hideous in- 
crease of madness in this country; and, within 
these very few years, how many scores of .young 
men, who, if their minds had been unperverted 
by the gambling principles of the day, had a 
probably long and happy life before them ; who 
had talent, personal endowments, love of parents, 
love of friends, admiration of large circles ; who 
had, in short, every thing to make life desirable, 
and who, from mortified pride, founded on false 
pretensions, ha\e pat an end to their own existence} 

£4. As tO DRUNKENNESS and GLUTTONY, 

generally so called, these are vices so nasty and 
beastly that T deem any one capable of indulging 
in them to be wholly unworthy of my advice ; 
and, if any youth, unhappily initiated in these 
odious and debasing vices should happen to read 
what I am now writing, I refer him to the com- 
mand of God, conveyed to the Israelites by- 
Moses, in Deuteronomy, Chap. xxi. The father 
and mother are to take the bad son " and bring 
" him to the elders of the city ; and they shall 
a say to the elders, This our son will not obey 
u our voice ; he is a glutton and a drunkard. 
" And all the men of the city shall stone him 
" with stones, that he die." I refer downright 
beastly gluttons and drunkards to this ; but indul- 
gence short, far short, of diis gross and really 
nasty drunkenness and gluttony is to Jbe depre- 
cated, and that, too, with the more earnestness 



cobbett's advice [Letter 

because it is too often looked upon as being no 
crime at all and as having nothing blameable in 
it ; nay, there are many persons, who pride 
themselves on their refined taste in matters con- 
nected with eating and drinking: so far from 
being ashamed of employing their thoughts on 
the subject, it is their boast that they do it. St. 
Gregory, one of the Christian fathers, says : 
" It is not the quantity or the quality of the 
" meat, or drink, but the love of it that is con- 
" demned ; " that is to say, the indulgence beyond 
the absolute demands of nature ; the hankering 
after it ; the neglect of some duty or other for 
the sake of the enjoyments of the table. 

25. This love of what are called " good eating 
and drinking" if very unamiable in grown-up 
persons, is perfectly hateful in a youth ; and, if 
he indulge in the propensity, he is already half- 
ruined. To warn you against acts of fraud, 
robbery, and violence, is not my province : that 
is the business of those who make and adminis- 
ter the law. I am not talking to you against 
acts which the jailor and the hangman punish; 
nor against those moral offences which all men 
condemn ; but against indulgences, which, by 
men in general, are deemed not only harmless, 
but meritorious ; but which the observation of 
my whole life has taught me to regard as de- 
structive to human happiness; and against which 
all ought to be cautioned even in their boyish 






].] TO A YOUTH. 

days. I have been a great observer, and I can 
truly say, that I have never known a man, u fond 
of good eating and drinking/' as it is called ; 
that I have never known such a man (and hun- 
dreds 1 have known) who w 7 as worthy of respect. 
26. Such indulgences are, in the first place, 
very expensive. The materials are costly, and 
the preparations still more so. What a mon- 
strous thing, that, in order to satisfy the appetite 
of a man, there must be a person or two at work 
every day I More fuel, culinary implements, 
kitchen-room: what! all these merely to tickle 
the palate of four or five people, and especially 
people who can hardly pay their way ! And ; 
then, the loss of time : the time spent in pleasing 
the palate : it is truly horrible to behold people, 
who ought to be at work, sitting, at the three 
meals, not less than three of the about fourteen 
hours that they are out of their beds ! A youth, 
habituated to this sort of indulgence, cannot be 
valuable to any employer. Such a youth can- 
not be deprived of his table-enjoyments on any 
account: his eating and drinking form the mo-* 
mentous concern of his life : if business inter- 
fere with that, the business must give way. A 
young man, some years ago, offered himself to 
me, on a particular occasion^ as an amanuensis, for 
which he appeared to be perfectly qualified. The 
terms were settled, and I, who wanted the job 
dispatched, requested him to sit down, and begin; 



cobbett's advice (^Letter 

but he, looking out of the window, whence he 
could see the church clock, said, somewhat 
hastily, " I cannot stop now, sir, I must go to 
"dinner" " Oh ! " said I, "you must go to , 
" dinner, must you ! Let the dinner, which you 
11 must wait upon t©-day ? have your constant 
" services, then ; for you and I shall never agree." 
He had told me that he was \i\ great distress for 
want* of employment ; and yet, when relief was 
there before his eyes, he could forego it for thp 
H sake of getting at his eating and drinking three 
or four hours, perhaps, sooner than I should 
have thought it right for him to lea/e off work. 
Such a person cannot be sent from home, except 
at certain times: he must be near the kitchen 
at three fixed hours of the day : if he be absent 
more than four or live hours, he is ill-treated. 
In short, a youth, thus pampered, is worth no- 
thing as a person to be employed in business. 

27. And, as to friends and acquaintances ; 
they will say nothing to you ; they will offer you 
indulgences under their roofs ; but, the more 
ready you are to accept of their offers, and, in 
fact, the better taste you discover, the less they 
will like yoi 1 , and the sooner they will find 
means of shaking you off; for, besides the cost 
which you occasion them, people do not like to 
have critics sitting in judgment on their bottles 
and dishes. Water-drinkers are universally 
laughed at ; but, it has always seemed to me, 



I.] TO A YOUTH. ' 

that they are amongst the most welcome of 
guests, and that, too, though the host be by no 
means of a niggardly turn. The truth is, they 
give no trouble ; they occasion no anxiety to please 
them ; they are sure not to make their sittings 
inconveniently long; and, which is the great 
thing of all, their example teaches moderation to 
the rest of the company. Your notorious " lovers 
of good cheer" are, on the contrary, not to be 
invited without due reflection: to entertain one of 
them is a serious business ; and, as people are 
not apt voluntarily to undertake such pieces of 
business, the well known "lovers of good eating 
and drinking " are left, very generally, to enjoy 
it by themselves and at their own expense. 

28. But, all other considerations aside, healthy 
the most valuable of all earthly possessions, and 
without which all the rest are worth nothing, 
bids us, not only to refrain from excels in eating 
and drinking, but bids to stop short of what 
might be indulged in without any apparent im- 
propriety. The words of Ecclesiasticus 
ought to be read once a week by every young 
person in the world, and particularly by the young 
people of this country at this time. " Eat mo- 
f destly that which is set before thee, and devour 
iC not, lest thou be hated. When thou sittest 
u amongst many, reach not thine hand out first 
" of all. Hoiv little is sufficient for man well 
H taught ! A 'wholesome sleep cometh of a 



cobbett's advice [Letter 

" temperate belly. Such a man riseth up in the 
u morning, and is well at ease with himself, Be 
u not too hasty of meats ; for excess of meats 
" bringeth sickness, and cholerick disease^ com- 
" eth of gluttony. By surfeit have many pe- 
" rished, and he that dieteth himself prolongeth 
" his life. Show not thy valiantness in wine ; 
"'for wine^hath destroyed many. Wine mea- 
" surably taken, and in season, bringeth gladness 
" and cheerfulness of mind ; but drinking with 
u excess maketh bitterness of mind, brawlings 
" and scoldings." How true are these words ! 
How well worthy of a constant place in our me- 
mories ! Yet, wnat pains have been taken to apo- 
logize for a life contrary to these precepts ! And, 
good God ! what punishment can be too great, 
what mark of infamy sufficiently signal, for those 
pernicious villains of talent, who have employed 
that talent in the composition of Bacchanalian 
songs ; that is to say, pieces of fine and captivating 
writing in praise of one of the most odious and 
destructive vices in the black catalogue of hu- 
man depravity ! 

29. In the passage which I havejust quoted from 
Chap. xxxi. of Ecclesiasticus, it is said, that 
" wine, measurably taken, and in season" is a 
proper thing. This, and other such passages of 
the Old Testament, have given a handle to 
drunkards, and to extravagant people, to insist, 
that God intended that wine should be commonly 



I.] TO A YOUTH, 

drunk. No doubt of that. But, then, he could 
intend this only in countries to which he had given 
wine and to which he had given no cheaper drink 
except water. If it he said, as it truly may, that, 
by the means of the sea and the winds, he has 
given wine to all countries, I answer that this 
gift is of no use to us now, because our 
government steps in between the sea and tlie winds 
and us. Formerly, indeed, the case was dif- 
ferent : and, here I am about to give you, inci- 
dentally, a piece of historical knowledge, which 
you will not have acquired from Hume, Gold- 
smith, or any of the other romancers, called his- 
torians. Before that unfortunate event the Pro- 
testant Reformation, as it is called, took place^ 
the price of red wine, in England, wasfourpence 
a gallon, Winchester measure; and, of white 
wine, sixpence a gallon. At the same time 
the pay of a labouring man per day, as fixed by 
law, was fourpence. Now, when a labouring 
man could earn four quarts of good wine in a 
day, it was, doubtless, allowable, even in Eng- 
land, for people in the middle rank of life to 
drink wine rather commonly ; and, therefore, in 
those happy days of England, these passages of 
Scripture were applicable enough. But, now, 
when w-e have got a Protestant government, 
which by the taxes which it makes people pay to 
it,, causes the eighth part of a gallon of wine 
to cost more than the pay of a labouring man 



cobbett's advice [Letter 

for a day; wow, this passage of Scripture is not 
applicable .us. There is no " season ", in which 
we can take wine without ruining ourselves, 
however "measurably" we may take it; and, 
I beg you to regard as perverters of Scripture 
and as seducers of youth, all those who cite 
passages like that above cited, in justification of, 
or as an apology for, the practice of wine drinking 
in England. 

30. I beseech you to look again and again al, 
and to remember every word of, the passage 
which I have just quoted from the book of 
'EccLESiASTtcus. How completely have been, 
and are, its words verified by my experience and 
in my person ! How little of eating and drink- 
ing is sufficient for me ! How wholesome is my 
sleep ! How early do I rise ; and how 7 " well at 
ease " am I "with myself" ! I should not have 
deserved such blessings, if I had withheld from 
my neighbours a knowledge of the means by 
which they were obtained; and, therefore,- this 
knowledge I have been in the constant habit of 
communicating. When one gives a dinner to a 
company it is an extraordinary affair, and is in- 
tended, by sensible men, for purposes other than 
those of eating and drinking. But, in general, 
in the every day life, despicable are those who 
suffer any part of their happiness to depend upon 
what they have to eat or to drink, provided they 
have a sufficiency of ivholesome food ; despica- 



L] TO A YOUTH* 

ble is the man, and worse than despicable the 
youth, that would make any sacrifice, however 
small, whether of money, or* of time, or of any 
thing else, in order to secure a dinner different 
from that which he would have had without such 
sacrifice. Who, what man, ever performed a 
greater quantity of labour than I have performed ? 
What man ever did so much ? Now, in a great 
measure I owe my capability to perform this la- 
bour to my disregard of dainties. Being shut 
up two years in Newgate, with a fine on my head 
of a thousand pounds to the king, for having 
expressed my indignation at the Hogging of Eng- 
lishmen under a guard of German bayonets, I 
ate during one whole year, one mutton chop every- 
day. Being once in town, with one son (then a 
little boy) and a clerk, while my family was 
in the country, I had during some weeks, no- 
thing but legs of mutton ; first day, leg of mutton 
boiled or roasted; second, cold ; third, hashed; 
then, leg of mutton boiled ; and so on. When 
1 have been by myself, or nearly so, I have 
always proceeded thus : given directions for 
having every day the same thing, or alternately 
as above, and every day exactly at the same hour, 
so as to prevent the necessity of any talk about 
the matter. I am certain that, upon an average, 
I have not, during my life, spent more than thirty- 
jive minutes a day at table, including all the 
.meals of the day. I like, and I take care to have, 



cobbett's advice [Letter 

good and clean victuals ; but, if wholesome and 
clean, that is enough. If I find it, by chance, 
too coarse for my appetite, I put the food aside, 
or let somebody do it, and leave the appetite 
to gather keenness. But, the great security of 
all, is, to eat little, and to drink nothing that 
intoxicates. He that eats till he is full is 
little better than a beast ; and he that drinks 
till he is drank is quite a beast. 

31. Before I dismiss this affair of eating and 
drinking, let me beseech you to resolve to free 
yourselves from the slavery of the tea and coffee 
and other slop-kettle, if, unhappily, you have 
been bred up in such slavery. Experience has 
taught me, that those slops are injurious to health: 
until I left them off (having taken to them at the 
age of 26), even my habits of sobriety, moderate 
eating, early rising ; even these were not, until I 
left off the slops, sufficient to give me that com- 
plete health which I have since had. I pretend 
not to bea" doctor " ; but, I assert, that to pour 
regularly, everyday, a pint or two of warm liquid 
matter down the throat, whether under the name 
of tea, coffee, soup, grog, or whatever else, is 
greatly injurious to health. However, at present, 
what I have to represent to you is the great de- 
duction, which the use of these slops makes from 
your power of being useful, and also from your 
poiver to husband your income, whatever it may 
be, and from whatever source arising. I am to 



I.] TO A YOUTH. 

suppose you to be desirous to become a clever, 
and an useful man ; a man to be, if not admired 
and revered, at least to be respected. In order 
to merit respect beyond that which is due to very 
common men, you must do something more 
than very common men ; and I am now going 
to show you how your course must be impeded 
by the use of the slops. 

32. If the women exclaim, " Nonsense ! come 
and take a cup/' take it for that once; but, hear 
what I have to say. In answer to my represen- 
tation regarding the waste of time which is oc- 
casioned by the slops, it has been said, that, 
let what may be the nature of the food, there 
must be time for taking it. Not so much time, 
however, to eat a bit of meat or cheese or butter 
with a bit of bread. But, these may be eaten 
in a shop, a warehouse, a factory, far from any 
fire, and even in a carriage on the road. The 
slops absolutely demand j^re and a congregation ; 
so that, be your business what it may ; be you 
shop-keeper, farmer, drover, sportsman, traveller, 
to the slop-board you must come ; you must wait 
for its assembling, or start from home without 
your breakfast; and, being used to the warm 
liquid, you feel out of order for the want of it. 
If the slops were in fashion amongst ploughmen 
and carters, we must all be starved ; for the food 
coula never be raised. The mechanics are half- 
ruined by them. Many of them are become 



cobbett's advice. [Letter!. 

poor, enervated creatures ; and chiefly from this 
cause. But is the positive cost nothing ? At 
boarding schools an additional price is given on 
account of the tea slops. Suppose you to be a 
clerk, in hired lodgings, and going to your count- 
ing house at nine o'clock. You get your dinner, 
perhaps, near to the scene of your work ; but 
how are you to have the breakfast slops without 
a servant? Perhaps you find a lodging just to 
suit you, but the house is occupied by people 
who keep no servants, and you want a servant to 
light afire and get the slop ready. You could 
get this lodging for several shillings a week less 
than another at the next door ; but there they 
keep a servant, who will u get you your break- 
fast, " and preserve you, benevolent creature 
as she is, from the cruel necessity of going to 
the cupboard and cutting off a slice of meat or 
cheese and a bit of bread. She will, most likely, 
toast your bread for you, too, and melt your 
butter ; and then muffle you up, in winter, and 
send ycu out almost swaddled. Really such a 
thing can hardly be expected ever to become a 
man* You. are weak ; you have delicate health; 
you are " bilious"! Why, my good fellow, it is 
these very slops that make you weak and bilious ! 
And, indeed, the poverty, the real poverty, that 
they and their concomitants bring on you, greatly 
assists, in more ways than one, in producing your 
"delicate health/' 



I.] TO A YOUTH. 

'S3. So much for indulgences in eating, drink- 
ing and dress. Next, as to amusements. It is 
recorded of the famous Alfred, that he devoted 
eight hours of the twenty-four to labour, eight to 
rest, and eight to recreation. He was, however, 
a king, and could be thinking during the eight 
hours of recreation. It is certain, that there 
ought to be hours of recreation, and I do not 
know that eight are too many ; but, then observe, 
those hours ought to be ivell-chosen, and the sort 
of recreation ought to be attended to. It ought 
to be such as is at once innocent in itself and 
inks tendency, and not injurious to health. The 
sports of the field are the best of all, because 
.they are conducive to health, because they are 
enjoyed by day-light, and because they demand 
early rising. The nearer that other amusements 
approach to these, the better they are. A town- 
life, which many persons are compelled, by the 
nature of their calling, to lead/precludes the pos- 
sibility of pursuing amusements of this description 
to any very considerable extent ; and young men 
in towns are, generally speaking, compelled to 
choose between boo k s on the one hand, or gaming 
and the play-house on the other. Dancing is at 
once rational and healthful : it gives animal spirits : 
it is the natural amusement of young people, and 
such it has been from the days of Moses: it is 
enjoyed in numerous companies : it makes the 
parties to be pleased with themselves and with 



cobbett's advice [Xetter 

all about them : it has no tendency to excite base 
and malignant feelings ; and none but the most 
grovelling and hateful tyranny, or the most stupid 
and despicable fanaticism, ever raised its voice 
against it, The bad modern habits of England 
have created one inconvenience attending the en- 
joyment of this healthy and innocent pastime ; 
namely, late hours, which are once injurious to 
health and destructive of order and of industry. 
In other countries people dance by day-light, 
Here they do not ; and, therefore, you must, in 
this respect, submit to the custom, though not 
without robbing the dancing night of as many 
hours as you can. 

34. As to Gaming, it is always criminal either 
in itself, or in its tendency. The basis of it is 
covetousness ; a desire to take from others some- 
thing, for which you have given, and intend to 
give, no equivalent. No gambler was ever yet 
happy man, and very few gamblers have escaped 
being miserable; and, observe, to game for no- 
thing is still gaming, and naturally leads to 
gaming for something, it is sacrificing time, and 
that, too, for the worst of punposes. 1 have kept 
house for nearly forty years ; I have reared a fa- 
mily ; I have entertained as many friends as most 
people; and I have never had cards, dice, a 
chess-board, nor any implement of gaming, under 
my roof. The hours that young men spend in 
this way are hours murdered; precious hours, 



! 



I.J ' TO A YOUTH. 

that ought to be spent either hi reading or 21* 
writing, or in rest, preparatory to the duties of the 
dawn. Though I do not agree with the base and 
nauseous flatterers, who now declare the army to 
be the best school for statesme?i, it is certainly a 
school in which to learn experimentally many 
useful lessons ; and, in this school I learned, that 
men, fond of gaming, are very rarely, if ever, 
trust- worthy. I have known many a clever man 
rejected in the way of promotion only because he 
was addicted to gaming. Men, in that state of 
life, cannot ruin themselves by gaming, for they 
possess no fortune, nor money ; but the taste for 
gaming is always regarded as an indication of a 
radically bad disposition ; and I can truly say, 
that I never in my whole life knew a man, fond 
of gaming, who was not, in some way or other, a 
person unworthy of confidence. This vice creeps 
on by very slow degrees, till, at last, it becomes an 
ungovernable passion, swallowing up every good 
and kind feeling of the heart. The gambler, as 
pour tray ed by Regnard, in a comedy the trans- 
lation of which into English resembles the 
original much about as nearly as Sir James 
Graham's plagiarisms resembled the Registers 
on which they had been committed, is a fine 
instance of the contempt and scorn to which 
gaming, at last, reduces its votaries ; but, if any 
young man be engaged in this fatal career, and be 
not yet wholly lost, let him behold Hogarth's 
c2 



cobbett*s advice [Letter 

gambler just when he has made his last throw 
and when disappointment has bereft him of his 
senses. If, after this sight, he remain obdurate^ 
he is doomed to be a disgrace to his name. 

35. The Theatre 'may he a source not only of 
amusement but also of instruction ; but, as things 
now are in this country, what, that is not bad, is 
to be learned in this school ? In the first place 
not a word is allowed to be uttered on the stage, 
which has not been previously approved of by 
the Lord Chamberlain ; that is to say, by a per- 
son appointed by the Ministry, who, at his plea- 
sure, allows, or disallows, of any piece, or any 
words in a piece, submitted to his inspection. In 
short, those who go to play-houses pay their 
money to hear uttered such ivords as the govern- 
ment approve of, and no others. It is now just 
twenty-six years since 1 first well understood how 
this matter was managed ; and, from that mo^ 
ment to. this, I have never been in an English 
play-house. Besides this, the meanness, the 
abject servility, of the players, and die slavish 
conduct of the audience, are sufficient to cor- 
rupt and debase the heart of any young man, 
who is a frequent beholder of them. Homage 
is here paid to every one clothed with power, be 
he who or what he may ; real virtue and public- 
spirit are subjects of ridicule ; and mock-senti- 
ment and mock-liberality and mock- loyalty are 
applauded to the skies. 



L] Tt) A YOUTH. 

36. " Show me a man's companions" says, 
the proverb, u and i will tell you what the man 
is ; " and this is, and must be true ; because all 
men seek the society of those who think and act 
somewhat like themselves : sober men will not 
associate with drunkards, frugal men will not 
like spendthrifts, and the orderly and decent 
shun the noisy, the disorderly and the debauched. 
It is for the very vulgar to herd together as 
singers, ringers and smoakers ; but, there is a 
class rather higher still more blameable ; I mean 
the tavern-haunters, the gay companions, who 
herd together to do little but talk, and who are so 
fond of talk that they go from home to get at it. 
The conversation amongst such persons has 
nothing of instruction in it, and is generally of a 
vicious tendency. Young people naturally and 
commendably seek the society of those of their 
own age ; but, be careful in choosing your com- 
panions ; and lay this down as a rule never to be 
departed from, that no youth, nor man, ought to 
be called your friend, who is addicted to indecent 
talk, or who is fond of the society of prostitutes. 
Either of these argues a depraved taste, and even 
a depraved, heart ; an absence of all principle 
and of all trust-worthiness ; and, I have remarked 
it all my life long, that young men, addicted to 
these vices, never succeed in the end, whatever 
advantages they may have, whether in fortune or 
in talent Fond mothers and fathers are but too 



cobeett's advice [Letter 

apt to be over-lenient to such offenders ; and, as 
long as youth lasts and fortune smiles, the pu- 
nishment is deferred ; but, It comes at last : it is 
sure to come ; and the gay and dissolute youth is 
a dejected and miserable man. After the early 
part of a life spent in illicit indulgences, a man 
is unworthy of being the husband of a virtuous 
woman ; and, if he have any thing like justice 
in him, how is he to reprove, in his children, 
vices in which he himself so lonsr indulged ? 
These vices of youth are varnished over by the 
saying, that there must be time for " sowing the 
wild oats/ 9 and that " tvildest colts make the 
best horses." These figurative oats, are, however, 
generally like the literal ones ; they are never to 
he eradicated from the soil ; and as to the colts, 
wildness in them is an indication of high animal 
spirit, having nothing at all to do with the mind, 
which is invariably debilitated and debased by pro- 
fligate indulgences. Yet this miserable piece of so- 
phistry, the offspring of parental weakness, is in 
constant use, to the incalculable injury of the rising 
generation. What so amiable as a steady, trust- 
worthy boy ? He is of real use at an early age : 
he can be trusted far out of the sight of parent 
or employer, while the "pickle," as the poor 
fond parents call the profligate, is a great deal 
worse than useless, because there must be some 
one to see that he (Joes no harm. If you 
have to choose, choose companions of your own 



L] TO A YOUTH. 

rank in life as nearly as maybe ; but, at any rate., 
none to whom you acknowledge inferiority ; 
for, slavery is too soon learned ; and, if the mind 
be bowed down in the youth, it will seldom rise 
up in the man. In the schools of those best of 
teachers , the Jesuits, there is perfect equality 
as to rank in life : the boy, who enters there, 
leaves all family pride behind him : intrinsic. merit 
alone is the standard of preference ; and the. 
masters are so scrupulous upon this head, that 
they do not suffer one scholar, of whatever rank, 
to have mora money to spend than the poorest. 
These wise men know well the mischiefs that 
must arise from inequality of pecuniary means 
amongst their scholars : they know how injurious 
it would be to learning, if deference were, by the 
learned, paid to the dunce ; and they, therefore, 
take the most effectual means to prevent it. 
Hence, amongst other causes, it is, that their 
scholars have, ever since the existence of their 
Order, been the most celebrated for learning of 
any men in the world. 

37. In your manners be neither boorish nor 
blunt, but, even these are preferable to simper- 
ing and crawling. I wish every English youth 
could see those of the United States of America ; 
always civil, never servile. Be obedient, where 
obedience is due ; for, it is no act of meanness, 
and no indication of want of spirit, to yield impli* 
cit and ready obedience to those who have a right 



:er 



cobbett's advice [Letter 

to demand it at your hands. In this respect 
England has been, and, I hope, always will be, 
an example to the whole world. To this habit 
of willing and prompt obedience in apprentices, 
in servants, in all inferiors in station, she owes, in 
a great measure, her multitudes of matchless 
merchants, tradesmen, and workmen of every de- 
scription, and also the achievements of her 
armies and navies. It is no disgrace, but the 
contrary, to obey, cheerfully, law 7 ful and just com- 
mands. None are so saucy and disobedient as 
slaves ; and, when you come to read history you 
will find that in proportion as nations have been 
free has been their reverence for the laws. But, 
there is a wide difference between lawful and 
cheerful obedience and that servility which repre- 
sents people as laying petitions cc at the king's 
feet," which makes us - imagine that w r e bjehold 
the supplicants actually crawling upon their bellies. 
There is something so abject in this expression ; 
there is such horrible self-abasement in it, that I 
do hope that every youth, who shall read this, 
will hold in detestation the reptiles who make use 
of it. In all other countries, the lowest indivi- 
dual can put a petition into the hands of the 
chief magistrate, be he king or emperor : let us 
hope, that the time wall yet come when English- 
men will be able to do the same. In the mean- 
while 1 beg you to despise these worse than pa- 
gan parasites. 



L] TO A YOUTH, 

38. Hitherto I have addressed you chiefly 
relative to the things to be avoided; let me now 
turn to the things which you ought to do, And 5 
first of all, the husbanding of your time. The 
respect that you will receive, the real and sincere 
respect, will depend entirely on what you are 
able to do. If you be rich, you may purchase 
what is called respect; but, it is not worth 
having. To obtain respect worth possessing you 
must, as I observed before, do more than the 
common run of men in your state of life ; and, 
to be enabled to do this, you must manage well 
your time ; and, to manage it well, you must 
have as much of the day-light and as little 
of the candle-light as is consistent with the due 
discharge of your duties. When people get 
into the habit of sitting up merely for the pur- 
pose of talking, it is no easy matter to break 
themselves of it ; and if they do not go to bed early, 
they cannot rise early. Young people require 
more sleep than those that are grown up : there 
must be the number of hours, and that number 
cannot well be, on an average, less than eight ; 
and, if it be more in winter time, it is all the 
better ; for, an hour in bed is better than an hour 
spent over fire and candle in an idle gossip. 
People never should sit talking till they do not 
know what to talk about. It is said by the 
country-people, that one hour's sleep before 
midnight is worth more than two are worth after 
c 5 



cobbett's Advice [Letter 

midnight, and this I believe to be a fact ; but, 
it is useless to go to bed early and even to rise 
early, if the time be not well employed after 
rising. In general half the morning is loitered 
away, the party being in a sort of half-dressed 
half-naked state ; out of bed, indeed, but still 
in a sort of bedding. Those who first invented 
morning-gowns and slippers could have very 
little else to do. These things are very suitable 
to those who have had fortunes gained for them 
by others * very suitable to those who have 
nothing to do, and who merely live for the pur- 
pose of. assisting to consume the produce of 
the earth; but, he who has his bread to earn, or 
who means to be worthy of respect on account 
of his labours, has no business with morning 
gown and slippers. In short, be your business 
or calling what it may, dress at once for the 
<lay ; and learn to do it as quickly as possible. 
A -looking-glass is a piece of furniture a great 
deal worse than useless. Looking at the face 
will not alter its shape or its colour ; and, per- 
haps, of all wasted time, none is so foolishly 
wasted as that which is employed in surveying 
one's own face. Nothing can be of little im- 
portance, if one be compelled to attend to it 
every day of our lives : if we shaved but once 
a year, or once a month, the execution of the 
thing would be hardly worth saming : but, this 
is a piece of work that must be done once every 



I.] TO A YOUTH, 

day; and, as it may cost only abut five minutes 
of time, and may be, and frequently is, made 
to cost thirty, or even fifty minutes ; and, as 
only fifteen minutes make about a fifty-eighth part 
of the hours of our average daylight ; this being 
the case, this is a matter of real importance. .1 
once heard Sir John Sinclair ask Mr, 
Cochrane Johnstone, whether he meaned 
to have a son of his (then a little boy) taught 
Latin? " No," said Mr. Johnstone, " but I 
mean to do something a great deal better for 
him." "What is that?" said Sir John. "Why," 
said other, "teach him to shave with cold water 
mid without a glass " Which, I dare say, he 
did ; and, for which benefit, I am sure that son 
has had good reason to be grateful. Only think 
of the inconvenience attending the common prac-? 
tice ! There must be hot water ; to have this 
there must b^ afire, and, in some cases, a fire 
for that purpose alone ; to have these, there 
must be a servant, or yOu must light a fire 
yourself. For the want of these, the job is put 
off until a later hour : this causes a stripping 
and another dressing bout ; or, you go in a 
slovenly state all that day, and tjie next day 
the thing must be done, or cleanliness must be 
abandoned altogether. If you be on a journey,, 
you must wait the pleasure of the servants at 
the inn before you can dress and set out in the 
morning \ the pleasant time for travelling is gone 



cobbett's advice [Letter 

before you can move from the spot ; instead ©f 
being at the end of your day's journey in good 
time, you are benighted, and have to endure all 
the great inconveniences attendant on tardy 
movements* And, all this, from the appa- 
rently insignificant affair of shaving ! How many 
a piece of important business has failed from 
a short delay ! And how many thousand of such 
delays daily proceed from this unworthy cause ! 
" Toujour s pret" was the motto of a famous 
French general ; and, pray, let it be yours : be 
i% always ready ;" and never, during your whole 
life, have to say, " I cannot go till I be shaved 
and dressed" Do the whole at once for the 
day, whatever may be your state of life ; and 
then you have a day unbroken by those indis- 
pensable performances. Begin thus, in the days 
of your youth, and, having felt the superiority 
which this practice will give you over those in 
all other respects your equals, the practice will 
stick by you to the end of your life. Till you 
be shaved and dressed for the day, you cannot 
set steadily about any business ; you know that 
you must presently quit your labour to return to the 
dressing affair; you, therefore, put it off until 
that be over ; the interval, the precious interval, 
is spent in lounging about ; and, by the time that 
you are ready for business, the best part of the 
day is gone. / 

39. Trifling as this matter appears upon 



I.] TO A YOUTH. 

naming it, it is, in fact, one of the great concerns 
of life ; and, for my part, I can truly say, that 
I owe more of my great labours to my strict ad- 
herence to the precepts that I have here given 
you, than to all the natural abilities with which 
I have been endowed ; for these, whatever may 
have been their amount, would have been of 
comparatively little use, even aided by great so- 
briety and abstinence, if I had not, in early life, 
contracted the blessed habit of husbanding well 
my time. To this, more than to any other thing, 
I owed my very extraordinary promotion in the 
army. I was always ready : if I had to mount 
guard afe ten, I was ready at nine : never did any 
man, or any thing, wait one momeut for me. 
Being, at an age under twenty years, raised from 
Corporal to Sergeant Major at once, over the 
heads of thirty sergeants, I naturally should have 
been an object of envy and hatred ; but this 
habit of early rising and of rigid adherence to 
the precepts which I have given you, really sub- 
dued these passions ; because every one felt, that 
what 1 did he had never done, and never could 
do. Before my promotion, a clerk was wanted 
to make out the morning report of the regiment. 
I rendered the clerk unnecessary; and, long be- 
fore any other man was dressed for the parade 
my work for the morning was all done, and I 
myself was on the parade, walking, in fine wea- 
ther, for an hour perhaps. My custom was this : 

13 



cobbett's advice [Letter 

to get up, in summer, at day-light, and in winter 
at four o'clock ; shave, dress, even to the putting 
of my sword-belt over my shoulder, and having 
my sword lying on the table before me, ready to 
hang by my side. Then I ate a bit of cheese, 
or pork, and bread. Then I prepared my re- 
port, which was filled up as fast as the compa- 
nies brought me in the materials. After this I 
had an hour or two to read, before the time came 
for any duty out of doors, unless, when the 
regiment or part of it went out to exercise in 
the morning. When this was the case, and the 
matter was left to me, I always had it on the 
ground in such time as that the bayonets glistened 
in the rising sun, a sight which gave me delight, 
of which I often think, but which I should 
in vain endeavour to describe. If the officers 
were to go out, eight or ten o'clock was the hour, 
sweating the men in the heat of the day, break- 
ing in upon the time for cooking their dinner, 
putting all things out of order and all men out 
of humour. When I was commander, the men 
had a long day of leisure before them : they could 
ramble into the town or into the woods ; go to 
get raspberries, to catch birds, to catch fish, or 
to pursue any other recreation, and such of them 
as chose, and were qualified, to work at their 
trades. So that here, arising solely from the 
early habits of one very young man, were plea- 
sant and happy days given to hundreds. 

14 



I-.] TO A YOUTH* 

40. Money is said to be power, which is, in 
some cases, true ; and the same may be said of 
knowledge $ but superior sobriety, industry and 
activity, are a still more certain source of power ; 
for without these, knowledge is of little use ; and, 
as to the power which money gives, it is that of 
brute force, it is the power of the bludgeon and 
the bayonet, and of the bribed press, tongue and 
pen. Superior sobriety, industry,- activity, though 
accompanied with but a moderate portion of 
knowledge, command respect, because they have 1 
great and visible influence, The drunken, the 
lazy, and the inert, stand abashed before the 
sober and the active. Besides, all those whose 
interests are at stake prefer, of necessity, those 
whose exertions produce the greatest and most 
immediate and visible effect. Self-interest is no 
respecter of persons : it asks, not .who knows 
best what ought to be done, but who is most 
likely to do it : we may, and often do, admire the 
talents of lazy and even dissipated men, but we 
do not trust them with the care of our interests. 
If, therefore, you would have respect and influ- 
ence in the circle in which you move, be more 
sober, more industrious, more active than the 
general run of those amongst whom you live. 

41. As to Education, this word is now ap- 
plied exclusively to things which are taught in 
schools ; but, education means rearing up, and the 
French speak of the education of pigs and sheep* 

15 



cobbett/s advice [Letter 

In a very famous French book on rural affairs, 
there is a Chapter entitled "Education du 
" cochon" ; that is, ducat ion of the hog. The 
word has the same meaning in both languages; 
for, both take it from the Latin. Neither is the 
word learning properly confined to things 
taught in schools, or by books; for, learning 
means knowledge ; and, but a comparatively small 
part of useful knowledge comes from Books* 
Men are not to be called ignorant merely be- 
cause they cannot make upon paper certain 
marks with a pen, or because they do not know 
the meaning of such marks when made by others. 
A ploughman may be very learned in his line, 
though he does not know what the letters 
p. L o. u. g. h mean when he sees them com- 
bined upon paper. The first thing to be required 
of a man is, that he understand well his own 
calling, or profession ; and, be you in what state 
of life you may, to acquire this knowledge ought 
to be your first and greatest care. A mati who 
has had a new-built house tumble down will 
derive little more consolation from being told that 
the architect is a great astronomer, than this dis- 
tressed nation now 7 derives from being assured 
that its distresses arise from the measures of a 
long list of the greatert orators and greatest heroes 
that the world ever beheld. 

42. Nevertheless, book-learning is by no means 
to be despised ; and it is a thing which may be 

16 






I.] TO A YOUTH, 

laudably sought after by persons in all states of 
life. In those pursuits which are called pro- 
fessions, it is necessary, and also, in certain 
trades ; and, in persons in the middle ranks of 
life a total absence of such learning is somewhat 
disgraceful. There is, however, one danger to 
be carefully guarded against ; namely, the opinion, 
that your genius, or your literary acquirements, 
are such as to warrant you in disregarding .the 
calling in which you are, and by which you gain 
your bread. Parents must have an uncommon 
portion of solid sense to counterbalance their 
natural affection sufficiently to make them com- 
petent judges in such a case. Friends. are par- 
tial ; and those who are not, you deem enemies. 
Stick, therefore, to the shop ; rely upon your 
mercantile or mechanical or professional calling ; 
try your strength in literature, if you like ; but, 
rely on the shop. If Bloom field, who wrote 
a poem, called the Faemee's Boy, had placed 
no reliance on the faithless muses, his unfortunate 
and much to be pitied family would, in all pro- 
bability, have not been in a state to solicit relief 
from charity. I remember that this loyal shoe- 
maker was flattered to the skies, and (ominous 
sign, if he had understood it) feasted at the tables 
of some of the great. Have, i beseech you, no 
hope of this sort ; and, if you find it creeping 
towards your heart, drive it instantly away as the 
mortal foe of your independance and your peace. 

17 



cobbett's advice [Letter 

43. With this precaution, however, book- 
learning is not only proper, but highly com- 
mendable : and portions of it are absolutely ne- 
cessary in every case of trade or profession. 
One of these portions is distinct reading, plain 
and neat writing, and arithmetic. The two for- 
mer are mere child's work ; the latter not quite 
so easily acquired, but equally indispensable, 
and of it you ought to have a thorough know- 
ledge before you attempt to study even the gram- 
mar of your own language. Arithmetic is soon 
learned ; it is not a thing that requires much natural 
talent; it is not a thing that loads the memory or 
puzzles the mind ; and, it is a thing of every day 
utility. Therefore, this is, to a certain extent, 
an absolute necessary; an indispensable acqui- 
sition. Every man is not to be a surveyor or au 
actuary ; and, therefore, you may stop far short 
of the knowledge, of this sort, which is demanded 
by these professions ; but, as far as common ac- 
counts and calculations go, you ought to be per- 
fect ; and this you may make yourself, without 
any assistance from a master, by bestowing upon 
this science, during six months, only one half of 
the time that is, by persons of your age, usually 
wasted over the tea-slops, or other kettle-slops, 
alone ! If you* become fond of this science, 
there may be a little danger of wasting your 
time on it. When, therefore, you have got as 
much of it as your business or profession caa 

18 



I.] TO A YOUTH* 

possibly render necessary, turn the time to some 
other purpose. As to books, on this subject, 
they are in every body's hand ; but, there is one 
hook on the subject of calculations, which I must 
point out to you ; " The Cambist/' by Dr. 
Kelly. This is a bad title, because, to men 
in general, it gives no idea of what the book 
treats of. It is a book, which shows the value 
of the several pieces of money of one country 
when stated in the money of another country. 
For instance, it tells us what a Spanish Dollar, a 
Dutch Dollar, a French Frank, and so on, is 
worth in English money. It does the same with 
regard to weights and measures : and it extends 
its information to all the countries in the world. 
It is, a work of rare merit; and every youth, be 
his state of life what it may, if it permit him 
to pursue book-learning of any sort, and par- 
ticularly if he be destined, or at ail likely to 
meddle with commercial matters, ought, as soon 
as convenient, to possess this valuable and in- 
structive book. 

44. The next thing is the Grammar of your 
own language. Without understanding this, you 
can never hope to become fit for any thing beyond 
mere trade or agriculture. It is true, that we do 
(God knows !) but too often see men have great 
wealth, high titles, and boundless power heaped 
upon them, who can hardly write ten lines to- 
gether correctly ; but, remember, it is not merit 



cobb£tt ? s advice [Letter 

that has been the cause of their advancement ; the 
cause has been, in aknost every such case, the 
subserviency of the party to the will of some go- 
vernment, and the baseness of some nation who 
have quietly submitted to be governed by brazen 
fools. Do not you imagine, that you will have 
luck of this sort : do not you hope to be rewarded 
and honoured for that ignorance which shall prove 
a scourge to your country, and which will earn 
you the curses of the children yet unborn. Rely 
you upon your merit, and upon nothing else. 
Without a knowledge of grammar, it is impossible 
for you to write correctly, and, it is by mere ac- 
cident if you speak correctly ; and, pray bear in 
mind, that all well-informed persons judge of a 
man's mind (until they have other means of judg- 
ing) by his writing or speakiug. The labour 
necessary to acquire this knowledge is, indeed, 
not trifling : grammar is not, like arithmetic, a 
science consisting of several distinct depart- 
ments, some of which may be dispensed with : 
it is a w 7 hole, and the whole must be learned, or, 
no part is learned. The subject is abstruse: it 
demands much reflection mid much patience : 
but, when once the task is performed, it is pea- 
formed for life, and in every day of that life it 
will be found to be, in a greater or less degree, 
a source of pleasure or of profit or of both to- 
gether. And, what is the labour ? It cousists of 
no bodily exertion ; it exposes the student to no 






I.] TO A YOUTH. 

cold, no hunger, no suffering of any sort The 
study need subtract from the hours of no business, 
nor, indeed, from the hours of necessary exercise : 
the hours usually spent on the tea and coffee slops 
and in the mere gossip which accompany them ; 
those wasted hours, of only one year y employed 
in the study of English grammar, would make you 
a correct speaker and writer for the rest of your 
life. You want no school, no room to study in, 
no expenses and no troublesome circumstances of 
any sort. I learned grammar when 1 was a pri- 
vate soldier on the pay of sixpence a day. The 
edge of .my. birth, or that of the guard-bed, was 
my seat to study in ; my knapsack was my book- 
case; a bit of board, lying on my lap, was my 
writing table ; and, the task did not demand any 
thing like a year of my life. I had no money to 
purchase candle or oil; in winter time it was 
rarely that I could get any evening-light but that 
of the Jire 9 and only my turn even of that. And, 
if I, under such circumstances, and without pa- 
rent or friend to advise or encourage me, accom- 
plished this undertaking, what excuse can there 
be for any youth, however poor, however pressed 
with business, or ^however circumstanced as to 
room or other conveniences ? To buy a pen or 
a sheet of paper 1 was compelled to forego some 
portion of food, though in a state of half-starva- 
tion ; 1 had no moment of time that I could call 
my own; and I had to read and to write amidst 



cobbett's advice [Letter 

the talking, laughing, singing, whistling and 
brawling of at least half a score of the most 
thoughtless of men, and that, too, in the hours of 
their freedom from all controul. Think not 
lightly of the farthing that I had to give, now 
and then, for ink, pen, or paper ! That farthing 
was, alas ! a great sum to me ! I was as tall as I 
am now ; 1 had great health and great exercise. 
The whole of the money, not expended for us at 
market, was two pence a week for each man. I 
remember^ and well I pi ay ! that, upon one oc- 
casion I, after all absolutely necessary expenses, 
had, on a Friday, made shift to have a half-penny 
in reserve, which I had destined for the purchase 
of a red-herring in the morning ; but, when I 
pulled off my clothes at night, so hungry then as 
to be hardly able to endure life, I found that I 
had lost my half-penny ! I buried my head under 
the miserable sheet and rug, and cried like a 
child ! And, again I say, if I, under circum- 
stances like these, could encounter and overcome 
this task, is there, can there be, in the whole 
world, a youth to iind an excuse for the non-per- 
formance ? What youth, wh<j shall read this, will 
not be ashamed to say, that he is not able to find 
time and opportunity for this most essential of^ali 
the branches of book-learning ? 

45. I press this matter with such earnestness, 
because a knowledge of grammar is the founda- 
tion of all literature ; and because without this 



I.] TO A YOUTH. 

knowledge opportunities for writing and speaking 
are only occasions for men to display their unfit- 
ness to write and speak. How many false pre- 
tenders to erudition have 1 exposed to shame 
merely by my knowledge of grammar ! How 
many of the insolent and ignorant great and pow- 
erful have I pulled down and made little and 
despicable ! And, with what ease have I con- 
veyed, upon numerous important subjects, infor- 
mation and instruction to millions now alive, and 
provided a store of bbth for millions yet unborn ! 
As to the course to be pursued in this great un- 
dertaking, it is, first, to read the grammar from 
the first word to the last, very attentively, several 
times over ; then, to copy the whole of it very 
correctly and neatly • and then to study the Chap- 
ters one by one. And what does this reading 
and writing require as to time ? Both together 
not more than the tea-slops and their gossips for 
three months ! Therear e about three hundred 
pages in my English Grammar. Four of those 
little pages in a day, which is a mere trifle of 
work, do the thing in three months. Two hours 
a day are quite sufficient for the purpose ; and 
these may, in any town that I have ever known, 
or in any village, be taken from that part of the 
morning during which the' main part of the peo- 
ple are in bed. I do not like the evening-candle- 
light work : it wears the eyes much more than 
the same sort of light in the morning, because 



cobbett 5 s advice [Letter 

then the faculties are in vigour and wholly un- 
exhausted. But for this purpose there is sufficient 
of that day-light which is usually wasted ;•' usually 
gossipped or lounged away ; or spent in some 
other manner productive of no pleasure, and ge- 
nerally producing pain in the end. It is very be- 
coming in all persons, and particularly in the 
young, to be civil and even polite ; but, it becomes 
neither young nor old to have an everlasting simper 
on their faces, and their bodies sawing in an ever- 
lasting bow : and, how many youths^iave I seen 
who, if they had spent, in the learning of gram- 
mar, a tenth part of the time that they have con- 
sumed in earning merited contempt for their 
affected gentility, would have laicl the foundation 
of sincere respect towards them for the whole of 
dieir lives ! 

46. Perseverance is a prime quality in every 
pursuit, and particularly in this. Yours is, too, 
the time of life to acquire this inestimable habit. 
Men fail much oftener from want of perseverance 
than from want of talent and of good disposition: 
as the race was not to the hare but to the tortoise ; 
so the meed 6f success in study is to him who is 
not in haste, but to him who proceeds with a steady 
and even step. It is not to a want of taste or 
of desire or of disposition to learn that we have 
to ascribe the rareness of good scholars, so much 
as to the want. of patient perseverance. Grammar 
is a branch of knowledge, like all other things of 



L] TO A YOUTH. 

high value, it is of difficult acquirement: the 
study is dry ; the subject is intricate ; it engages 
not the passions ; and, if the great end be not 
kept constantly in view ; if you lose, for a moment, 
sight of the ample reward, indifference begins, 
that is followed by weariness, and disgust and 
despair close the book. To guard against this 
result be not in haste ; keep steadily on; and, 
v. hen you find weariness approaching, rouse your- 
self, and remember, that, if you give up, all that 
you have done has been done in vain. This is 
a matter of great moment ; for out of every ten, 
who undertake this task, there are, perhaps, nine 
who abandon it in despair ; and this, too, merely 
for the w r ant of resolution to overcome the first 
approaches of weariness. The most effectual 
means of security against this mortifying result is 
to lay down a rule to write or to read a certain 
fixed quantity every day, Sunday excepted. 
Our minds are not always in the same state ; they 
have not, at all times, the same elasticity ; to- 
day we are full of hope on the very same grounds, 
which, to-morrow, afford us no hope at all ; 
every human being is liable to those flows and 
ebbs of the mind; but, if reason interfere, and 
bid you overcome the Jits of lassitude, and al- 
most mechanically to go on without the stimulus 
of hope, the buoyant fit speedily returns; you 
congratulate yourself that you did not yield to 
the temptation to abandon your pursuit, and you 



cobbett's advice [Letter 

proceed .with more vigour than ever. Five or six 
triumphs over temptation to indolence or despair 
lay the foundation of certain success ; and, what 
is of still more importance, fix in you the habit of 
perseverance. 

47. If I have bestowed a large portion of my 
space on this topic, it has been because I know, 
from experience as well as from observation, 
that it is of more importance than all the other 
branches of book-learning put together. It gives 
you, when you possess it thoroughly, a real and 
practical superiority over the far greater part of 
men. How often did I experience this even long 
before I became what is called an author! The 
Adjutant, under whom it was my \luty to act, 
when I was a Sergeant Major, w T as, as almost all 
military officers are, or, at least, were, a very illi- 
terate man, perceiving that every sentence of 
mine was in the same form and manner as sen- 
tence in print, became shy of letting me see 
pieces of his writing. The writing of Orders, 
and other things , therefore, fell tome; and, thus, 
though no nominal addition was made to my pay 
and no nominal addition to my authority, I ac- 
quired the latter as effectually as if a law had 
been passed to confer it upon me. In short, 
I owe to the possession of this branch of know- 
ledge every thing that has enabled me to do so 
many things that very few other men have done, 
and that now gives me a degree of influence, 



I.] TO A YOUTH. 

,such as is possessed by few others, in the most 
weighty concerns of the country. The posses- 
sion of this branch of knowledge raises you in 
your own esteem, gives just confidence in your- 
self, and prevents you from being the willing slave 
of the rich and the titled part of the community. 
It enables you to discover that riches and titles 
do not confer merit ; you think comparatively 
little of them ; and, as far as relates to you, at 
any rate, their insolence is innoxious. 

48. Hoping that I have said enough to induce 
you to set resolutely about the study of gram- 
mar, I might here leave the subject of learning , 
arithmetic and grammar, both well learned, as 
much as I would wish in a mere youth. But, 
these need not occupy the whole of your spare 
time ; and, there are other branches of learning 
which ought immediately to follow. If your 
own calling or profession require book-study, 
books treating of that are to be preferred to all 
others ; for, the first thing, the first object in life, 
is to secure the honest means of obtaining sus- 
tenance, raiment, and a state of being suitable 
to your rank, be that rank what it may : excel- 
lence in your own calling is, therefore, the first 
thing to be aimed at. After this may come ge- 
neral knoivledge, and of this, the first is a 
thorough knowledge of your own country ; for, 
how ridiculous is it to see an English youth 
engaged in reading about the customs of the^ 



cobbett's advice [Letter 

Chinese, or of the Hindoos, while he is content to 
be totally ignorant of those of Kent or of Corn- 
wall ! Well employed he must be in ascertain- 
ing how Greece was divided and how the Romans 
parcelled out their territory, while he knows not, 
and, apparently, does not want to know, how 
England came to be divided into counties, hun- 
dreds, parishes and tithings. 

40. Geography naturally follows Grammar; 
^ind, you should begin with that of this kingdom, 
which you ought to understand well, perfectly 
well, before you venture to look abroad. A ra- 
ther slight knowledge of the divisions and cus- 
toms of other countries is, generally speaking, 
sufficient ; but, not to know these full well, as 
far as relates to our own country is, in one who 
pretends to be a gentleman or a scholar, some- 
what disgraceful. Yet, how many men are there, 
and those called gentlemen too, who seem to 
think that counties and parishes, and churches 
and parsons, and tithes and glebes, and manors 
and courts-leet, and paupers and poor-houses, 
all grew up in England, or dropped down upon 
it, immediately after Noah's flood ! Surely, it 
is necessary for every man, having any pretensions 
to scholarship, to know how these things came ; 
and, the sooner this knowledge is acquired the 
better; for, until it be acquired your read the 
history of your country in vain. Indeed, to 
communicate this knowledge is one main part of 



I.J' TO A YOUTH. 

the business of history ; but, it is a part which 
no historian commonly so called, has, that I know 
of, ever yet performed, except, in part, myself, 
in the history of the Protestant Reforma- 
tion. I had read Hume's History of England 
and the Continuation by Smollett ; but, in 
180£, when I wanted to write on the subject of 
the non-residence of the clergy, I found, to my 
great mortification, that I knew the foundation of 
the office and the claims of the parsons, and that 
I could not even guess at the origin of parishes. 
This gave a new turn to my inquiries ; and I soon 
found the romancers, called historians, had given 
me no information that 1 could rely on, and, be- 
sides, had done, apparently, all they could to 
keep me in the dark. 

50. When you come to History, begin also 
with that of your own country ; and here it is 
my bounden duty to put you well on your guard ; 
for, in this respect we are peculiarly unfortunate, 
and for the following reasons, to which I beg 
you to attend. Three hundred years ago, the 
religion of England had been, during nine hun- 
dred years, the Catholic religion; the Catholic 
Clergy possessed about a third part of all the lands 
and houses, which they held in trust for their 
own support, for the building and repairing of 
cliurches', and for the relief of the poor, the 
widow, the orphan and the stranger ; but, at the 
time just mentioned,, the king and the aristocracy 



cobbett's advice [Letter 

changed the religion to Protestant, took tiie estates 
of the church and the poor to themselves as their 
own property, and taxed the people at large for 
the building and repairing of churches and for 
the relief of the poor. This great and terrible 
change, effected partly by force against the peo- 
ple and partly by the most artful means of decep- 
tion, gave rise to a series of efforts, which has 
been continued from that day to this, to cause us 
all to believe, that that change was for the bet- 
ter, that it was for our good ; and that, before 
that time, our forefathers were a set of the most 
miserable slaves that the sun ever warmed with 
his beams. It happened, too, that the art of 
printing was not discovered, or, at least, it was 
very little understood, until about the time when 
this change took place ; so that the books relat- 
ing to former times were confined to manuscript; 
and, besides, even these manuscript libraries 
were destroyed with great care by those who had 
made the change and had grasped the property 
of the poor and the church. Our u Historians," 
as they are called, have written under fear of the 
powerful, or have been bribed by them ; and, 
generally speaking, both at the same time ; and, 
accordingly, their works are, as far as they relate 
to former times, masses of lies unmatched by any 
others that the world has ever seen. 

51. The great object of these lies always has 
been to make the main body of the people 



* 



L] TO A YOUTH. 

believe, that the nation is now more happy, more 
populous, more powerful, than it was before it 
was Protestant, and thereby to induce us to 
conclude, that it was a good thing for us that 
the aristocracy should take to themselves the 
property of the poor and the church, and make 
the people at large pa?/ taxes for the support of 
both. This has been, and still is, the great 
object of all those heaps of lies ; and those lies 
are continually spread about amongst us in all 
forms of publication, from heavy folios down 
to half-penny tracts. In refutation of those lies 
we have only very few and rare ancient books 
to refer to, and their information is incidental;, 
seeing that their authors never dreamed of the 
possibility of the lying generations which were 
to come. We have the ancient acts of oar- 
liament, the common-law, the customs, the 
canons of the church, and the churches them- 
selves ; but, these demand analyses and argu- 
ment, and they demand also a really free press , 
and unprejudiced and patient readers. Never 
in this world, before, had truth to struggle with 
so many and such great disadvantages ! 

b%. To refute lies is not, at present, my busi- 
ness ; but, it is my business to give you in as 
small a compass as possible, one striking proof 
that they are lies ; and, thereby, to put you well 
upon your guard for the whole of the rest of your 
life. The opinion sedulously inculcated by these 



cobbett's advice [Letter 

"historians" is this ; that, before the Protestant 
times came, England was, comparatively, an in- 
significant country, having Jew people in it, and 
those few wretchedly poor and miser ablt. Now, 
take the following undeniable facts. All the 
parishes in England are now (except where they 
have been united, and two, three, or four have 
been made into one) in point of size, what they 
were a thousand years ago. The county of 
Norfolk is the best cultivated of any one in En- 
gland. This county has now 731 parishes; and 
the number was formerly greater. Of these pa- 
rishes 22 have now no churches at all ; 74 contain 
less than 100 souls each : and 268 have no par- 
sonage-houses. Now, observe, every parish had, 
in old times, a church and a parsonage house. 
The county contains 2,092 square miles ; that is 
to say, something less than 3 square miles to each 
parish, and that is 1,920 statute acres of land; 
and, the size of each parish is, on an average, 
that of a piece of ground about one mile and a 
half each way; so that the churches are, even 
now, on an average, only about a mile and a half 
from each other. Now, the questions for you to 
put to yourself are these : Were churches formerly 
built and kept up without being icanted, and es- 
pecially by a poor and miserable people ? Did 
these miserable people build 74 churches out of 
73 i, each of which 74 had not a hundred souls 
belonging to it? Is it a sign of an augmented 



II.] TO A YOUNG MAN. 

population, that 22 churches out of 731 have 
tumbled down and been effaced ? Was it a coun- 
try thinly inhabited by miserable people that 
could build and keep a church in every piece of 
ground a mile and a half each way, besides 
having, in this same county, 77 monastic esta- 
blishments and 142 free chapels? Is it a sign of 
augmented population, ease and plenty, that, out 
of 731 parishes, 268 have suffered the parsonage 
houses to fall into ruins and their sites to be- 
come patches of nettles and of brambles ? Put 
these questions calmly to yourself: common 
sense will dictate the answers ; and truth will call 
for an expression of your indignation against the 
lying historians and the still more lying population 
mongers. 



LETTER II. 



TO A YOUNG MAN. 



53. In the foregoing Letter, I have given my 
advice to a Youth. In addressing myself to you, 
I am to presume that you "have entered upon your 
present stage of life, having acted upon the pre- 
cepts contained in that letter; and that, of course, 
d 2 



cobbett's advice [Letter 

you are a sober, abstinent, industrious and we! I 
informed young man. In the succeeding, letters, 
which will be addressed to the Lover, the Hus- 
band, the Father and the Citizen, I shall, of 
course, have to include my notion of your duties 
as a master, and as a person employed by another. 
In the present letter, therefore, I shall confine 
myself principally to the conduct of a young man 
with regard to the management of his means, or 
money. 

54. Be you in what line of life you may, it will 
be amongst your misfortunes if you have not time 
properly to attend to this matter ; for, it very 
frequently happens, it has happened to thousands 
upon thousands, not only to be ruined, according 
to the common acceptation of the word ; not only 
to be made poor, and to suffer from poverty, in 
consequence of want of attention to pecuniary 
matters; but it has frequently, and even generally, 
happened, that a want of attention to these mat- 
ters has impeded the progress of science, and of 
genius itself. A man, oppressed with pecuniary 
cares and dangers, must be next to a miracle, if 
he have his mind in a state fit for intellectual la- 
bours ; to say nothing of the temptations, arising 
from such distress, to abandon good principles, 
to suppress useful opinions and useful facts ; and, 
in short, to become a disgrace to his kindred, and 
an evil to his country, instead of being an honour 
to the former and a blessing to the latter. To be 



II.] TO A YOUNG MAX. 

poor and independent is<very nearly an Impos- 
sibility. 

55. But, then, poverty is not a positive, but a 
relative term. Burke observed, and very truly, 
that a labourer who earned a sufficiency to main- 
tain him as a labourer, and to maintain him in a 
suitable manner ; to give him a sufficiency of good 
food, of clothing, of lodging, and of fuel, ought 
not to be called a poor man; for that, though he 
had little riches, though his, compared with that 
of a Lord, was a state of poverty, it was not a 
state of poverty in itself. When, therefore, I say- 
that poverty is the cause of a depression of spirit, 
of inactivity and of servility in men of literary 
talent, I must say, at the same time, that the evil 
arises from their own fault; from their having 
created for themselves imaginary wants ; from 
their having indulged in unnecessary enjoyments, 
and from their having caused that to be poverty, 
which would not have been poverty, if they' had 
been moderate in their enjoyments. 

56. As it may be your lot (such has been 
mine) to live by your literary talent, I will, here, 
before I proceed to matter more applicable to 
persons in other states of life, observe, that I 
cannot form an idea of a mortal more wretched 
than a man of real talent, compelled to curb 
his genius, and to submit himself in the ex- 
ercise of that genius, to those, whom he knows 
to be far inferior to himself, and whom he must 



cobbett's advice [Letter 

despise from the bottom of his soul. The late 
Mr. William Gifford, who was the son of a 
shoemaker at Ashburton in Devonshire ; who 
was put to school and sent to the university at the 
expense of a generous and good clergyman of 
the name of Co ok son, and who died, the other 
day, a sort of whipper-in of Murray's Quar- 
terly Review : this was a man of real genius ; 
and, to my certain personal knowledge he de- 
tested, from the bottom of his soul, the whole 
of the paper -money and Boroughmongering 
system, and despised those by whom the sys- 
tem was carried on. But, he had imaginary 
wants ; he had been bred up in company with 
the rich and the extravagant; expensive indi- 
gencies had been made necessary to him by 
habit; and, when, in the year 1798, or there- 
abouts, he had to choose between a bit of bacon, 
a scrag of mutton and a lodging at ten shillings 
a week, on the one side, and made-dishes, wine 
a fine house and a footman on the other side, he 
chose the latter. He became the servile Editor 
of Canning's Anti-jacobin newspaper ; and he, 
who had more wit and learning than all the rest 
of the writers put together, became the miserable 
tool in circulating their attacks upon every thing 
that was hostile to a system which he deplored 
and detested. But, he secured the made-dishes, 
the wine, the footman and the coachman. A 
sinecure as " clerk of the Foreign Estreats" 



II.] TO A YOUNG MAN. 

gave him 329/. a year, a double commissioner- 
ship of the lottery gave him 600/. or 700/. more ; 
and, at a later period, his Editorship of the 
Quarterly Review gave him perhaps as much 
more. He rolled in his carriage for several 
years ; he fared sumptuously ; he was buried at 
Wesminster Abbey, of which his friend and for- 
merly his brother pamphleteer in defence of 
Pjtt, was the Dean; and, never is he to be 
heard of more ! Mr. Gifford would have 
been full as happy ; his health would have been 
better, his life longer, and his name would have 
lived for ages, if he could have turned to the bit 
of bacon and scrag of mutton in 1 798; for his 
learning and talents were such, his reasonings so 
clear, and conclusive, and his wit so pointed and 
keen, that, his writings must have been generally 
read, must have been of long duration ; and, in- 
deed, must have enabled him (he being always a 
single man) to live in his latter days in as good 
style as that which he procured by becoming a 
sinecurist, a pensioner and a hack, all which he 
was from the moment he lent himself to the 
Quarterly Review. Think of the mortification 
of such a man, when he was called upon to jus- 
tify tire power-of-imprisonment bill in 181?! 
But, to go into particulars would be tedious : his 
life was a life of luxurious misery, than which a 
worse is not to be imagined. 

57. So, that, poverty is, except where there is 



cobbett's advice [Letter 

an actual want of food and raiment, a thing 
much more imaginary than real. The shame of 
poverty, the shame of being thought poor, is a 
great and fatal weakness, though arising, in this 
country, from the fashion of the times themselves. 
When, a good man, as in the phraseology of the 
city, means a rich man, we are not to wonder 
that every one wishes to be thought richer than he 
is. When adulation is sure to follow wealth, 
and when contempt would be awarded to many 
if they were not w r ealthy, who are spoken of with 
deference, and even lauded to the skies, because 
their riches are great and notorious ; when this 
is the case, we are not to be surprised that men are 
ashamed to be thought to be poor. This is one of 
the greatest of all the dangers at the outset of life : 
it has brought thousands ancl hundreds of thou- 
sands to ruin, even to pecuniary ruin. One of the 
most amiable features in the character of Ameri- 
can Society is this ; that men never boast of their 
riches, and never disguise their poverty ; but, they 
talk of both as of any other matter, fit for pub- 
lic conversation. No man shuns another because 
he is poor : no man is preferred to another be- 
cause he is rich. In hundreds and hundreds of 
instances, men, not worth a shilling, ha?e been 
chosen by the people and entrusted with their 
rights and interests, in preference to men who 
ride in their carriages, 

58. This shame of being thought poor is not 






1I.J TO A YOUNG MAN. 

only dishonourable in itself, and fatally inju- 
rious to men of talent; but it is ruinous even 
in a pecuniary point of view, and equally de- 
structive to farmers, traders, and even gentlemen 
of landed estate. It leads to everlasting efforts 
to disguise one's poverty : the carriage, the ser- 
vants, the wine (oh, that fatal wine !) the spirits, 
the decanters, the glasses, all the table apparatus, 
the dress, the horses, the dinners, the parties, all 
must be kept up ; not so much because he or 
she who keeps or gives them, have any pleasure 
arising therefrom, as because not to keep and 
give them, would give rise to a suspicion of the 
want of means so to give and keep ; and thus 
thousands upon thousands are yearly brought into 
a state of real poverty by their great anxiety not 
to be thought poor. Look round you, mark 
well what you behold, and say if this be not the 
case. In how many instances have you seen 
most amiable and even most industrious families 
brought to ruin by nothing but this ! Mark it 
well ; resolve to set this false shame at defiance, 
and when you have done that, you have laid the 
first stone of the surest foundation of your fu- 
ture tranquillity of mind. There are thousands of 
families, at this very moment, who are thus strug- 
gling to keep up appearances. The farmers ac- 
commodate themselves to circumstances more 
easily than tradesmen and professional men. They 
. live at a greater distance from their, neighbours : 
d 5 



cobbett's advice [Letter 

they can change their style of living unperceived : 
they can banish the decanter, change the dishes for 
a bit of bacon, make a treat out of a rasher and 
eggs, and tire world is none the wiser all the while. 
But, the tradesman, the doctor, the attorney, and 
the trader, cannot make the change so quietly 
and unseen. The accursed wine, which is a sort 
of criterion of the style of living, a sort of scale 
to the plan, a sort of key to the tune ; this is 
the thing to banish first of all ; because all the 
rest follow, and come down to their proper level 
in a short time. The accursed decanter cries 
footman or waiting maid, puts bells to the side of 
the wall, screams aloud for carpets • and when I 
am asked, " Lord, what is a glass of wine ? " my 
answer is, that, in this country, it is every thing ; 
it is the pitcher of the key ; it demands all the 
other unnecessary expenses ; it is injurious to 
health, and must be injurious, every bottle of wine 
that is drunk containing a certain portion of ardent 
spirits, besides other drugs deleterious in their 
nature ; and, of all the friends to the doctors, 
this fashionable beverage is the greatest. And, 
which adds greatly to the folly, or, ] should say, 
the real vice of using it, is, that the parties them- 
selves, nine times out of ten, do not drink it by 
choice ; do not like it ; do not relish it ; but use 
it from mere ostentation, being ashamed to be 
seen even by their own servants, not to drink 
wine. At the very moment I am writing this, 



1L] TO A YOUNG MAN* 

there are thousands of families in and near Lon- 
don, who daily have wine upon their tables, and 
who drink it too, merely because their own ser- 
vants should not suspect them to be poor, and not 
deem them to be genteel ; and thus families by 
thousands are ruined, only because they are 
ashamed to be thought poor. 

59. There is no shame belonging to poverty, 
which frequently arises from the virtues of the im- 
poverished parties. Not so frequently, indeed, 
as from vice, folly, and indiscretion; but still 
very frequently. And as the Scripture tells us, 
that we are not to if despise the poor because he 
"is poor"; so we ought not to honour the rich 
because he is jich. The true way is, to take a 
fair survey of the character of a man as de- 
picted in his conduct, and to respect him, or de- 
spise him, according to a due estimate of that 
character. No country upon earth exhibits so 
many, as this, of those fatal terminations of life, 
called suicides. These arise, in nine instances 
out of ten, from this very source. The victims 
are, in general, what may be fairly called in- 
sane ; but their insanity almost always arises 
from the dread of poverty ; not from the dread 
of a want of the means of sustaining life, or 
even decent living, but from the dread of being 
thought or known to be poor 5 from the dread 
of what is called falling in the scale of society 5 
a dread which is prevalent hardly in any coun* 



cobbett's advice [Letter 

try but this. Looked at in its true light, what is 
there in poverty to make a man take away his own 
life ? he is the same man that he was before : he 
has the same body and the same mind : if he 
even foresee a great alteration in his dress or his 
diet, why should he kill himself on that account ? 
Are these all the things that a man wishes to live 
for ? But, such is the fact ; so great is the dis- 
grace upon this country, and so numerous and 
terrible are the evils arising from this dread of 
being thought to be poor. 

60. Nevertheless, men ought to take care of 
their means, ought to use them prudently and 
sparingly, and to keep their expenses always 
within the bounds of their income, be it what it 
may. One ©f the effectual means of doing this 
is to purchase with ready money. St. Paul 
says, "Owe no man any thing:" and, of his 
numerous precepts this is by no means the least 
worthy of our attention. Credit has been 
boasted of as a very fine thing : to decry credit 
seems to be setting oneself up against the opinions 
of the whole world ; and I remember a paper 
in the Freeholder or the Spectator, pub- 
lished just after the funding system had begun, 
representing " Public Credit" as a Goddess, 
enthroned in a temple dedicated to her by her 
votaries, amongst whom she is dispensing bles- 
sings of every description. It must be more than 
forty years since I read this paper, which I 



II.] TO A YOUNG MAN. 

read soon after the time when the late Mr. 
Pitt uttered in Parliament an expression of his 
anxious hope, that his " name would be in- 
" scribed on the monument which he should raise 
" to public credit." Time has taught me, that 
Public Credit means, the contracting of 
Debts which a nation never can pay ; and I have 
lived to see this Goddess produce effects, in my 
country, which Satan himself never could have 
produced. It is a very bewitching Goddess ; 
and not less fatal in her influence in private than 
in public affairs. It has been carried in this 
latter respect to such a pitch, that, scarcely any 
transaction, however low and inconsiderable in 
amount, takes place in any other w T ay. There is 
a trade in London, called the u Tally-trade," by 
which, household goods, coals, clothing, all sorts 
of things, are sold upon credit, the seller keep- 
ing a tally, and receiving payment for the goods, 
little by little ; so that tire income and the earn- 
ings of the buyers are always anticipated; are 
always gone, in fact, before they come in or are 
earned ; the sellers receiving, of course, a great 
deal more than the proper profit. 

6.1. Without supposing you to descend to so 
low a grade as this, and even supposing you to 
be lawyer, doctor, parson, or merchant; it is 
still the same thing, if you purchase on credit, 
and not perhaps, in a much less degree of dis- 
advantage. Besides the higher price that you 



cobbett's advice [Letter 

pay there is the temptation to have what you 
really do not want. The cost seems a trifle, 
when you have not to pay the money until a 
future time. It has been observed, and very 
truly observed, that men used to lay out a one 
pound note when they would not lay out a sove- 
reign ; a consciousness of the intrinsic value of 
the things produces a retentiveness in the latter 
case more than in the former : the sight and the 
touch assist the mind in forming its conclusions, 
and the one pound note was parted with, when 
the sovereign would have been kept. Far 
greater is the difference between Credit and 
Heady money. Innumerable things are not 
bought at all with ready money, which would be 
bought in case of trust : it is so much easier to 
order a thing than to pay for it. A future day ; 
a day of payment must come, to be sure, but 
that is little thought of at the time ; but, if the 
money were to be drawn out, the moment the 
thing was received or offered, this question would 
arise, "Can I do without it ? " Is this thing in- 
dispensable ; am I compelled to have it, or, suffer 
a loss or injury greater in amount than the cost 
of the thing ? If this question were put, every 
time we make a purchase, seldom should we hear 
of those suicides which are such a disgrace to 
this country. 

6*2. I am aware, that it will be said, and very 
truly said, that the concerns of merchants; that, 

14 



II. ] TO A YOUNG MAN, 

the purchasing of great estates, and various other 
great transactions, cannot be carried on in this 
manner ; but these are rare exceptions to the 
rule ; even in these cases there might be much 
less of bills and bonds, and all the sources of 
litigation ; but, in the every-day business of life ; 
in transactions with the butcher, the baker, the 
tailor, the shoemaker, what excuse can there be 
for pleading the example of the merchant, who 
carries on his work by ships and exchanges ? I 
was delighted, some time ago, by being told of a 
young man, who, upon being advised to keep i± 
little account of all he received and expended, 
answered, " that his business was not to keep 
'" account books : that he was sure not to make a 
" mistake as to his income ; and, that as to his ex- 
" penditure, the little bag that held his sove- 
P. reigns would be an infallible guide, as he 
" never bought any thing that he did not imme- 
" diately pay for." 

63. I believe that nobody will deny, that, ge- 
nerally speaking, you pay for the same article a 
fourth part more in the case of trust than you do 
in the case of ready money. Suppose, then, the 
baker, butcher, tailor and shoemaker, receive from 
you only one hundred pounds a year. Put that 
together ; that is to say, multiply twenty-five by 
twenty, and you will find, that, at the end of 
twenty years, you have 500/. besides the accu- 
mulating and growing interest. The fathers of 



cobbett's advice [Letter 

the Church (I mean the ancient ones), and also 
the canons of the Church, forbade selling on trust 
at a higher price than for ready money, which 
was in effect, to forbid trust ; and this, doubtless, 
was one of the great objects which those wise 
and pious men had in view ; for, they were fathers 
in legislation and morals, as well as in religion. 
But, the doctrine of these fathers and canons no 
longer prevails ; they are set at nought by the 
present age, even in the countries that adhere to 
their religion. Addison's Goddess has pre* 
vailed over the fathers and the canons ; and men 
not only make a difference in the price regulated 
by the difference in the mode of payment ; but it 
would be absurd to expect them to do otherwise. 
They must not only charge something for the 
want of the use of toe money; but they must 
charge something additional for the risk of its' 
loss, which may frequently arise, and most fre- 
quently does arise, from the misfortunes of those 
to whom they have assigned their goods on trust. 
The man, therefore, who purchases on trust, not 
only pays for the trust, but he also pays his due 
share of what the tradesman loses by trust ; and, 
after all, he is not so good a customer as the man 
who purchases cheaply with ready money ; for* 
there is his name indeed in the tradesman's book ; 
but, with that name the tradesman cannot go to 
market to get a fresh supply. 

64. Infinite are the ways in which gentlemen 



II,] TO A YOUNG MAN. 

lose by this sort of dealing. Servants go and 
order, sometimes things not wanted at all ; at 
other times, more than is wanted ; at others, things 
of a higher quality ; and, all this would be ob- 
viated by purchasing with ready money ; for, 
whether through the hands of the party himself, 
or through those of an inferior, there would 
always be an actual counting out of the money ; 
somebody would see the thing bought and see the 
money paid ; and, as the master would give the 
house-keeper or steward a bag of money at the 
time, he would see the money too, would set a 
proper value upon it, and would just desire to 
know upon what it had been expended. 

65. How is it that farmers are so exact, and 
show such a disposition to retrench in tSie article 
of labour, when they seem to think little, or 
nothing, about the sums which they pay in tax 
upon malt, wine, sugar, tea, soap, candles, to- 
bacco and various other things ? You find the 
utmost difficulty in making them understand, that 
they are affected by these. The reason is, that 
they see the money which they give to the la- 
bourer on each succeeding Saturday night ; but 
they do not see that which they give in taxes on 
the articles before mentioned. Why is it that 
they make such an outcry about the six or seven 
millions a year which are paid in poor- rates, 
and say not a word about the sixty millions a year 
raised in other taxes ? The consumer pays all ; 



cobbett's advice [Letter 

and, therefore, they are as much interested in the 
one as in the other; and yet the farmers think of 
no tax but the poor tax. The reason is, that the 
latter is collected from them in money : they see it 
go out of their hands into the hands of another ; 
and, therefore, they are everlastingly anxious to 
reduce the poor rates, and they take care to keep 
them within the smallest possible bounds. 

66. Just thus would it be with every man that 
never purchased but with ready money : he would 
make the amount as low as possible in proportion 
to his means : this care and frugality would make 
an addition to his means, and, therefore in the end; 
at the end of his life, he would have had a great 
deal more to spend, and still be as rich, as if he 
had gone in trust ; while he would have lived in 
tranquillity all the while ; and would have avoided 
all the endless papers and writings and receipts 
and bills and disputes and law-suits inseparable 
from a system of credit. This is by no means a 
lesson of stinginess ; by no means tends to incul- 
cate a heaping up of money ; for, the purchasing 
w 7 ith ready money really gives you more money to 
purchase with ; you can afford to have a greater 
quantity and variety of things ; and I will engage, 
that, if horses or servants be your taste, the saving 
in this way gives you an additional horse or an 
additional servant, if you be in any profession or 
engaged in any considerable trade. In towns, it 
tends to accelerate your pace along the streets ; 
is 



II.] TO A YOUNG MAN. - 

for, the temptation of the windows is answered 
in a moment by clapping your hand upon your 
thigh ; and the question, " Do I really want that V* 
is sure to occur to you immediately ; because the 
touch of the money is sure to put that thought in 
your mind. 

67. Now, supposing you to have a plenty; 
to have a fortune beyond your wants, would not 
the money, which you would save in this way, 
be very well applied in acts of real benevolence ? 
Can you walk many yards in the streets ; can you 
ride a mile in the country ; Can you go to half 
a dozen cottages ; can you, in tshort, open your 
eyes, without seeing some human being ; some 
one born in the same country with yourself, and 
who, on that account alone, has some claim upon 
your good wishes and your charity ; can you open 
your eyes without seeing some person to whom 
even a small portion of your annual savings 
would convey gladness of heart ? Your own heart 
will suggest the answer ; and, if there were no 
motive but this, what need I say more in the 
advice which I have here tendered to you ? 

68. Another great evil arising from this desire 
to be thought rich ; or, rather, from the desire 
not to be thought poor, is the destructive thing 
which has-been honoured by the name of " specula- 
tion " ; but which ought to be called Gambling. 
It is a purchasing of something which you do 
not want either in your family or in the way 



COBBETT 5 S ADVICE [Letter 

of ordinary trade : a something to be sold again 
with a great profit ; and on the sale of which, 
there is a considerable hazard. When purchases 
of this sort are made with ready money, they are 
not so offensive to reason and not attended with 
such risk ; but when they are made with money 
borrowed for the purpose, they are neither more 
nor less than gambling transactions ; and they 
have been, in this Country, a source of ruin, 
misery, and suicide, admitting of no adequate 
description. I grant that this gambling has 
arisen from the influence of the " Goddess " 
before mentioned ; I grant that it has arisen from 
the facility of obtaining the fictitious means of 
making the purchases ; and I grant that that 
facility has been created by the system under the 
baneful influence of which we live. But, it is not the 
less necessary that 1 beseech you not to practice 
such gambling ; that I beseech you, if you be 
engaged in it, to disentagle yourself from it as 
soon as you can. Your life, while you are thus 
engaged, is the life of the gamester ; a life of 
constant anxiety ,* constant desire to over-reach ; 
constant apprehension ; general gloom, enlivened, 
now and then, by a gleam of hope or of success. 
Even that success is sure to lead to further ad- 
ventures ; and, at last, a thousand to one, that 
your fate is that of the pitcher to the well. 

69. The great temptation to this gambling is, 
as is the case in other gambling, the success oj 






II.] TO A YOUNG MAN. 

the few. As young men, who crowd to the 
army, in search of rank and renown, never look 
into the ditch that holds their slaughtered com- 
panions ; but have their eye constantly fixed on 
the General in chief; and as each of them 
belongs to the same profession, and is sure to be 
conscious that he has equal merit, every one 
deems himself the suitable successor of him who 
is surrounded with Aides des camps, and who 
moves battalions and columns by his nod ; so 
with the rising generation of " speculators " : 
they see the great estates that have succeeded 
the pencil-box and the orange-basket; they see 
those whom nature and good laws made to black 
shoes, sweep chimnies or the streets, rolling in 
carriages, or sitting in saloons surrounded by 
gaudy footmen with napkins twisted round their 
thumbs ; and they can see no earthly reason why 
they should not all do the same ; forgetting the 
thousands and thousands, who, in making the 
attempt, have reduced themselves to that beg- 
gary which, before their attempt, they would 
have regarded as a thing wholly impossible. 

70. In all situations of life, avoid the tram- 
mels of the law. Man's nature must be changed 
before law suits will cease ; and, perhaps, it 
would be next to impossible to make them less 
frequent than they are in the present state of this 
country ; but, though no man, who has any 
property at all, can say that he will have nothing 



cobbett's advice [Letter 

to do with law suits, it is in the power of most 
men, to avoid them in a considerable degree. 
One good rule is to have as little as possible to do 
with any man who is fond of law suits ; and who, 
upon every slight occasion, talks of an appeal to 
the Law. Such persons, from their frequent liti- 
gations, contract a habit of using the technical 
terms of the Courts, in which they take a pride, 
and are, therefore, companions peculiarly dis- 
gusting to men of sense. To such men a law- 
suit is a luxury, instead of being as it is, to men 
of ordinary minds, a source of anxiety and a 
real and substantial scourge. Such men are 
always of a quarrelsome disposition, and avail 
themselves of every opportunity to indulge in 
that which is mischievous to their neighbours. 
In thousands of instances men go to law for 
the indulgence of mere anger. The Germans 
are said to bring spite-actions against one 
another; and to harass their poorer neighbours 
from motives of pure revenge. They have 
carried this their disposition with them to 
America ; for which reason no one likes to live 
in a German neighbourhood. 

71. Before you go to law consider well the 
cost ; for if you win your suit and are poorer than 
you were before, what do you accomplish ? You 
only imbibe a little additional anger against your 
opponent; you injure him but do harm to your- 
self.' Better to put up with the loss of one pound 



II.] TO A YOUNG MAN. 

than of two, to which latter is to be added all 
the loss of time ; all the trouble, and all the mor- 
tification and anxiety attending a law suit. To 
set an attorney to work to worry and torment 
another man is a very base act ; to alarm his 
family as well as himself, while you are sitting 
quietly at home. If a man owe you money 
which he cannot pay, why add to his distress 
without the chance of benefit to yourself? Thou- 
sands of men have injured themselves by resort- 
ing to the law ; while very few ever bettered 
themselves by it, except such resort were una- 
voidable. 

72. Nothing is much more discreditable than 
what is called hard dealing. They say of the 
Turks, that they know nothing of two prices for 
the same article : and that to ask an abatement 
of the lowest shopkeeper is to insult him. It 
would be well if Christians imitated Mahometans 
in this respect. To ask one price and take ano- 
ther, or to offer one price and give another, be- 
sides the loss of time that it occasions, is highly 
dishonourable to the parties, and especially when 
pushed to the extent of solemn protestations. It 
is, in fact, a species of lying • and it answers no 
one advantageous purpose to either buyer or 
seller. I hope that every young man, who reads 
this, will start in life with a resolution never to 
higgle and lie in dealings. There is this circum- 
stance in favour of the bookseller's business : 



cobbett's advice [Letter 

every book has its fixed price, and no one ever 
asks an abatement. If it were thus in all other 
trades, how much time would be saved, and how 
much immorality prevented ! 

73. As to the spending of your time, your 
business or your profession k to claim the prio- 
rity of every thing else. Unless that be duly 
attended to, there can be no real pleasure in 
any other employment of a portion of your 
time. Men, however, must have some leisure, 
some relaxation from business ; and in the choice 
of this relaxation, much of your happiness will 
depend. Where fields and gardens are at hand., 
they present the most rational scenes for leisure. 
As to -company, I have said enough in the former 
letter to deter any young man from that of 
drunkards and rioting companions ; but, there is 
such a thing as your quiet " pipe-and-pot com- 
panions" which are, perhaps, the most fatal of 
all. Nothing can be conceived more dull, more 
stupid, more the contrary of edification and rati- 
onal amusement, than sitting, sotting, over a pot 
and a glass, sending out smoke from the head, 
and articulating, at intervals, nonesense about all 
sorts of things. Seven years service as a galley- 
slave would be more bearable to a man of sense, 
than seven months confinement to society like 
this. Yet, such is the effect of habit, that, if a 
young man become a frequenter of such scenes 
the idle propensity sticks to him for life. Some 



II. j TO A YOUNG MAN. 

companions, however, every man must have ; but, 
these every well behaved man will find in private 
houses, where families are found residing and 
where the suitable intercourse takes place be- 
tween women and men. A man that cannot pass 
an evening without drink merits the name of a 
sot. Why should there be drink for the purpose 
of carrying on conversation ? Women stand in 
need of no drink to stimulate them to converse ; 
and I have a thousand times admired their pa- 
tience in sitting quietly at their work, while their 
husbands are engaged, in the same room, with 
bottles and glasses before them, thinking nothing 
of the expense and still less of the shame which 
the distinction reflects upon them. We have to 
thank the women for many things, and particu- 
larly for their sobriety, for fear of following their 
example in which men drive them from the table, 
as if they said to them : M You have had enough ; 
u food is sufficient for you ; but w r e must remain 
" to fill ourselves with drink, and to talk in lan- 
Ci guage which your ears ought not to endure.'" 
When women are getting up to retire from the 
table, men rise in honour of them • but, they take 
special care not to follow their excellent example. 
That which is not fit to be uttered before women 
is not fit to be uttered at all ; and it is next to 
a proclamation, tolerating drunkenness and in- 
decency, to send women from the table the 
moment they have swallowed their food. The 



cgbbett's advice [Letter 

practice has been ascribed to a desire to leave 
them to themselves ; but why should they be left 
to themselves ? Their conversation is always 
the most lively, while their persons are gene- 
rally the most agreeable objects. No : the plain 
truth is, that it is the love of the drink and of 
the indecent tali: that send women from the table ; 
and it is a practice which I have always ab- 
horred. I like to see young men, especially, fol- 
low them out of the room, and prefer their 
company to that of the sots who are left behind. 
74, Another mode of spending the leisure 
time is that of books. Rational and well in- 
formed companions may be still more instruc- 
tive; but, books never annoy; they cost little; 
and they are always at hand, and ready at your 
call. The sort of books, must, in some degree, 
depend upon your pursuit in life ; but there are 
some books necessary to every one who aims at 
the character of a well informed man. I have 
slightly mentioned History and Geography in 
the preceding letter ; but I must here observe, 
that, as to both these, you should begin with 
your own country, and make yourself well ac- 
quainted, not only with its ancient state, but 
with the origin of all its principal institutions. 
To read of the battles which it has fought, and of 
the intrigues by which one king or one minister 
has succeeded another, is very little more pro- 
fitable than the reading of a romance. To un- 



JI.J TO A YOUNG MAN. 

derstancl well the history of the country, you 
should first understand how it came to be divided 
into counties, hundreds, and into parishes ; how 
judges, sheriffs and juries first arose ; to what 
end they were all invented, and how the changes 
with respect to any of them have been produced. 
But,,it is of particular consequence, that you as- 
certain the state of the people in former times, 
which is to be ascertained by comparing the then 
price of labour with the then price of food. 
You hear enough, and you read enough, about 
the glorious wars in the reign of King Edward 
the third; and it is very proper that those 
glories should be recorded and remembered ; but 
you never read, in the works of the historians, 
that, in that reign, a common labourer earned 
threepence-halfpenny a day ; and that a fat 
sheep was sold, at the same time, for one shilling 
and twopence, and a fat hog, two years old, for 
three shillings and fourpence, and a fat goose for 
twopence-halfpenny. You never read, that wo- 
men received a penny a clay for hay-making or 
weeding in the core, and that a gallon of red wine 
was sold for fourpence. These are matters which 
historians have deemed to be beneath their notice ; 
but j they are matters of real importance : they 
are matters which ought to have practical effect 
at this time ; for these furnish the criterion 
whereby we are to judge of our condition com-" 
pared with that of our forefathers. The poor- 



cobbett's advice [Letter 

rates form a great feature in the laws and cus- 
toms of this country. Put to a thousand persons 
who have read what is called the history of Eng- 
land ; put to them the question, how the poor- 
rates came ? and nine hundred and ninety-nine 
of the thousand will tell you ? that they know 
nothing at all of the matter. This is not his- 
tory ; a list of battles and a string of intrigues 
are not history, they communicate no knowledge 
applicable to our present state ; and it really is 
better to amuse oneself with an avowed romance, 
which latter is a great deal worse than passing 
one's time in counting the trees. 

75 * History has been described as affording 
arguments of experience ; as a record of what 
has been, in order to guide us as to what is likely 
to be, or what ought to be ; but, from this ro- 
mancing history, no such experience is to be de- 
rived : for it furnishes no facts on which to found 
arguments relative to the existing or future state 
of things. To come at the true history of a 
country you must read its laws : you must read 
books treating of its usages and customs, in for- 
mer times; and you must particularly inform 
yourself as to prices of labour and of food. By 
reading the single Act of the £3rd year of Ed- 
ward the third, specifying the price of labour 
at that time ; by reading an Act of Parliament 
passed in the £4th year of Henry the 8th; by 
reading these two Acts, and then reading the 



II.] TO A YOUNG MAN. 

Preciosum of Bishop Fleetwood, which 
shows the price of food in the former reign, you 
come into full possession of the knowledge of 
what England was in former times. Divers 
books teach how the divisions of the country 
arose, and how its great institutions were esta- 
blished; and, the result of this reading is a store 
of knowledge, which will afford you pleasure for 
the whole of your life. 

76. History, however, is by no means the only 
thing about which every man's leisure furnishes 
him with the means of reading; besides which, 
every man has not the same taste. Poetry, Geogra- 
phy, Moral Essays, the divers subjects of Philoso- 
phy, Travels, Natural History, books on Sciences ; 
and, in short, the whole range of book-knowledge 
is before you; but, there is one thing always to 
be guarded against ; and Aat is, not to admire 
and applaud any thing you read, merely because 
it is the fashion to admire and applaud it. Read, 
consider well what you read, form your otvn 

judgment, and stand by that judgment in despite 
of the sayings of what are called learned men, 
until fact or argument be offered to convince you 
of your error. One writer praises another ; and 
it is very possible, for writers so to combine as to 

v cry down and, in some sort, to destroy the repu- 
tation of any one who meddles with the combi- 
nation, unless the person thus assailed be blessed 
with uncommon talent and uncommon perseve- 



cobbett's advice [Letter 

ranee. When I read the works of Pope and of 
Swift, I was greatly delighted with their lashing 
of Dennis; but wondered, at the same time, 
why they should have taken so much pains in 
running down such a fool. By the merest ac- 
cident in the world , being at a tavern in the 
woods of America, 1 took up an old book, in 
order to pass away the time while my travelling 
companions were drinking in the next room; but, 
seeing the book contained the criticisms of 
Dennis, 1 was about to laj it down, when the 
play of " Cato" caught my eye ; and, having 
been accustomed to read books in which this play 
was lauded to the skies, and knowing it to have 
been written by Addison, every line of w T hose 
works I had been taught to believe teemed 
with wisdom and genius, I condescended to 
begin to read, though the work was from the pen 
of that fool Dennis. I read on, and soon began 
to laugh, not at Dennis but at Addison. I 
laughed so much and so loud, that the landlord, 
who was in the passage, came in to see what I 
was laughing at. In short I found it a most 
masterly production, one of the most wittj things 
that I had ever read in my life. I was delighted 
with Dennis, and was heartily ashamed of my 
former admiration of Cato, and felt no little re- 
sentment against Pope and Swift for their 
endless reviling of this most able and witty critic. 
This, as far as I recollect, was the first emanci- 



II.] TO A YOUNG MAN. 

pation that had assisted me in my reading. I 
have, since that time, never taken any thing upon 
trust : I have judged for myself, trusting neither to 
the opinions of writers nor in the fashions of the 
day. Having been told by Dr. Blair, in his 
lectures on Rhetoric, that, if I meant to write 
correctly, I must " give my days and nights to 
Addison/* I read a few numbers of the Spec- 
tator at the time I was writing my English 
Grammar: I gave neither my nights nor my 
days to him; but, I found an abundance of 
matter to afford examples of false grammar ; 
and, upon a re-perusal, I found that the criticisms 
of Dennis might have been extended to this 
book too. 

77* But, that which never ought to have been 
forgotten by those who were men at the time, 
and that which ought to be made known to every 
young man of the present day, in order that he 
may be induced to exercise his own judgment 
with regard to books, is, the transactions relative 
to the writings of Shakspeare, which transac- 
tions took place about thirty years ago. It is 
still, and it was then much more, the practice to 
extol every line of Shakspeare to the skies : 
not to admire Shakspeare has been deemed to 
be a proof of want of understanding and taste. 
Mr. Garrick, and some others after him, had 
their own good and profitable reasons for crying 
tip the works of this poet. When I was a very 

E 



cobbett's advice [Letter 

little boy, there was a jubilee in honour of Shak- 
speare, and as he was said to have planted a 
Mulberry tree, boxes, and other little ornamental 
things in wood, were sold all over the country, 
as having been made out of the trunk or limbs of 
this ancient and sacred tree. We Protestants 
laugh at the relics so highly prized by. Catholics; 
but never was a Catholic people half so much 
duped by the relics of saints, as this nation was 
by the mulberry tree, of which, probably, more 
wood was sold than would have been sufficient 
in quantity to build a ship of war, or a large 
house. This madness abated for some years; 
but, towards the end of the last century it broke 
out again with more fury than ever. Shak- 
speare's works were published by Bqydell, an 
Alderman of London, at a subscription of five 
hundred pounds for each copy, accompanied by 
plates^ each forming a large picture. Amongst the 
mad men of the day was a Mr. Ireland, who 
seemed to be more mad than any of the rest. 
His adoration of the poet led him to perform a 
pilgrimage to an old farm-house, near Stratford- 
upon-Avon, said to have been the birth-place of 
the poet. Arrived at the spot, he requested the 
farmer and his wife to let him search the house 
for papers, first going upon his knees, and pray 
ing, in the poetic style, the gods to aid him ii 
his quest. He found no papers ; but he found that 
the farmer's wife, in clearing out a garret soim 



II.] TO A YOUNG MAN. 

years before, had found some rubbishy old papers 
which she had burnt, and which had probably been 
papers used in the wrapping up of pigs' cheeks to 
keep them from the bats. " Q, wretched wo- 
man ! " exclaimed he ; " do you know what you 
have " done ?** " O dear, no ! " said the wo- 
man, half frightened out of her wits : " no harm, 
a I hope ; for the papers were very old; I dare 
" say as old as the house itself." This threw 
him into an additional degree of excitement, as 
it is now fashionably called : he raved, he stamped, 
he foamed, and at last quitted the house, covering 
the poor woman with every term of reproach; and 
hastening back to Stratford, took post-chaise for 
London, to relate to his brother madmen the 
horrible sacrilege of this heathenish woman. Un- 
fortunately for Mr. Ireland, unfortunately for 
his learned brothers in the metropolis, and un- 
fortunately for the reputation of Shakspeare, 
Mr. Ireland took with him to the scene of his 
adoration a son> about sixteen years of age, who 
was articled to an attorney in London. The son 
was by no means so sharply bitten as the father; 
and, upon returning to town, he conceived the 
idea of supplying the place of the invaluable 
papers, which the farm-house heathen had de- 
stroyed. He thought, and he thought rightly, 
that he should have little difficulty in writing 
plays just like those of Shakspeare! To get 
paper that should seem to have been made in the 
e2 



cobbett's advice [Letter 

reign of Queen Elizabeth, and ink that should 
give to writing the appearance of having the 
same age, was somewhat difficult ; but both were 
overcome. Young Ireland was acquainted with 
a son of a bookseller, who dealt in old books : the 
blank leaves of these books supplied the young 
author with paper ; and he found out the way of 
making proper ink for his purpose. To work he 
went, ivrote several plays, some love-letters, and 
other things; and having got a Bible, extant in 
the time of Shakspeare, he wrote notes in the 
margin. All these, together with sonnets in 
abundance, and other little detached pieces, he 
produced to his father, telling him he got them 
from a gentleman, who had made him swear that 
he would not divulge his name. The father an- 
nounced the invaluable discovery to the literacy 
world : the literary world rushed to him; the 
manuscripts were regarded as genuine by the 
most grave and learned Doctors, some of whom 
(and amongst these were Doctors Parr and 
Warton) gave, under their hands, an opinion, 
that the manuscripts must have been ivritten by 
Shakspeare ; for that no other man in the world 
could have been capable of writing them! 

78. Mr. Ireland opened a subscription, pub- 
lished these new and invaluable manuscripts at an 
enormous price ; and preparations were instantly 
made for performing one of the plays, called 
Vortigern. Soon after the acting of the play, 



II.] TO A YOUNG MAN. 

the indiscretion of the lad caused the secret to 
explode; and, instantly, those who had declared 
that he had written as well as Shakspeare, did 
every thing in their power to destroy him ! The 
attorney drove him from his office ; the father 
drove him from his house ; and, in short, he was 
hunted down as if he had been a malefactor of 
the worst description. The truth of this relation 
is undeniable ; it is recorded in numberless books. 
The young man is, I believe, yet alive; and, in 
short, no man will question any one of the facts. 
79. After this, where is the person of sense 
who will be guided hi these matters by fashion? 
where is the man, who wishes not to be deluded, 
who will not, when he has read a book, judge for 
himself? After all these jubilees and pilgrim- 
ages 5 after Boydeli/s subscription of 500/. for 
one single copy; after it had been deemed almost 
impiety to doubt of the genius of Shakspeare 
surpassing that of all the rest of mankind; after 
he had been called the " Immortal Bard/ 9 as a 
matter of course, as we speak of Moses and Aaron, 
there having been but one of each in the world ; 
after all this, comes a lad of sixteen years of age, 
writes that which learned Doctors declare could 
have been written by no man but Shakspeare, 
and, when it is discovered that this laughing boy 
is the real author, the Doctors turn round upon 
him, with all the newspapers, magazines, and 
reviews, and, of course, the public at their back, 



coebett's advice [Letter 

revile him as an impostor ; and, under that odious 
name, hunt him out of society^ and doom him to 
starve ! This lesson, at any rate, he has given 
us : not to rely on the judgment of Doctors 
and other pretenders to literary superiority. 
Every young man, when he takes up a book for 
the first time, ought to remember this story; and, 
if he do remember it, he will disregard fashion with 
regard to the book, and will pay little attention 
to] the decision of those who call themselves 
critics. 

80. I hope that your taste would keep you 
aloof from the writings of those detestable vil- 
lains, who employ the powers of their mind in 
debauching the minds of others, or in endeavours 
to do it. They present their poison in such cap- 
tivating forms, that it requires great virtue and 
resolution to withstand their temptations ; and, 
they, have, perhaps, done a thousand times as 
muchfmischief in the world as all the infidels 
and atheists put together. These men ought to 
be called literary pimps : they ought to be held 
in universal abhorrence, and never spoken of but 
with execration. Any appeal to bad passions is 
to be despised ; any appeal to ignorance and pre*- 
judice ; but here is an appeal to the frailties of 
human nature, and an endeavour to make the 
mind corrupt, just as it is beginning to possess its 
powers. I never have known any but bad men, 
worthless men, men unwprthy of any portion of 



II.] , TO A YOUNG MAN. 

respect, who took delight in, or even kept in their 
possession, writings of the description to which 
I here allude. The writings of Swift have this 
blemish ; and, though he is not a teacher of 
lewdness, but rather the contrary, there are cer- 
tain parts of his poems which are much too filthy 
for any decent person to read. It was beneath 
him to stoop to such means of setting forth that 
wit which would have been far more brilliant 
without them. I have heard, that, in the library 
of what is called an " illustrious person," sold 
some time ago, there was an immense collection 
of books of this infamous description ; and from 
this circumstance, if from no other, I should have 
formed my judgment of the character of that 
person. 

81. Besides reading, a young man ought to 
write, if he have the capacity and the leisure. 
If you wish to remember a thing well, put it into 
writing, even if you burn the paper immediately 
after you have done ; for the eye greatly assists 
the mind. Memory consists of a concatenation 
of ideas, the place, the time, and other circum- 
stances, lead to the recollection of facts; and no 
circumstance more effectually than stating the 
facts upon paper. A Journal should be kept by 
every young man. Put down something against 
every day in the year, if it be merely a descrip- 
tion of the weather. You will not have done 
this for one year without finding the benefit of 



ADVICE TO A YOUNG MAN. [Letter II. 

it. It disburthens the mind of many things to 
be recollected ; it is amusing and useful, and 
ought by no means to be neglected. How often 
does it happen that we cannot make a statement 
of facts, sometimes very interesting to ourselves 
and our friends, for the want of a record of the 
places where we were, and of things that oc- 
curred on such and such a day ! How often 
does it happen that we get into disagreeable dis- 
putes about things that have passed, and about 
the time and other circumstances attending them ! 
As a thing of mere curiosity, it is of some value, 
and may frequently prove of very great utility. 
It demands not more than a minute in the twenty- 
four hours ; and that minute is most agreeably 
and advantageously employed. It tends greatly 
to produce regularity in the conducting of af- 
fairs : it is a thing demanding a small portion 
of attention once in every day ; I myself have 
found it to be attended with great and numerous 
benefits, and I therefore strongly recommend it 
to the practice of every reader. 



LETTER III. 

TO A LOVER, 



82. There are two descriptions of Lovers on 
whom all advice would be wasted ; namely, those 
in whose minds passion so wholly overpowers 
reason as to deprive the party of his sober 
senses. Few people are entitled to more com- 
passion than young men thus affected : it is a 
species of insanity that assails them ; and, when 
it produces self-destruction, which it does in 
England more frequently than in all the other 
countries in the world put together, the mortal 
remains of the sufferer ought to be dealt with in 
as tender a manner as that of which the most 
merciful construction of the law will allow. If 
Sir Samuel Romilly's remains were, as they 
were, in fact, treated as those of a person labour- 
ing under "temporary mental derangement" 
surely the youth who destroys his life on account 
of unrequited love, ought to be considered in as 
mild a light ! Str Samuel was represented, in 
the evidence taken before the Coroner's Jury, to 
have been inconsolable for the loss of his ivife ; 
that this loss had so dreadful an effect upon his 
mind, that it bereft him of his reason^ made life 
e 5 



cobbett's advice [Letter 

insupportable, and led him to commit the act of 
suicide : and, on this ground alone, his remains 
and his estate were rescued from the awful, 
though just and wise, sentence of the law. But, 
unfortunately for the reputation of the adminis- 
tration of that just and wise law, there had been, 
only about two years before, a poor man, at Man- 
chester, buried in cross-roads, and under cir- 
cumstances which entitled his remains to mercy 
much more clearly than in the case of Sir Sa- 
muel Rom illy. 

83. This unfortiinate youth, whose name was 
Smith, and who was a shoemaker, was in love 
with a young woman, who, in spite of all his 
importunities and his proofs of ardent passion, 
refused to marry him, and even discovered her 
liking for another ; and he, unable to support 
life, accompanied by the thought of her being 
in possession of any body but himself, put an 
end to his life by the means of a rope. If, in 
any case, we are to presume the existence of in- 
sanity ; if, in any case, we are led to believe the 
thing without positive proof \ if, in any case, 
there can be an apology in human nature itself, 
for such an act ; this was that case. We all 
know (as I observed at the time) ; that is to say, 
all of us who cannot wait to calculate upon the 
gains and losses of the affair ; all of us, except 
those who are endowed with this provident 
frigidity, know well what youthful love is ; and 



■III.] TO A LOVER. 

what its torments are, when accompanied by even 
the smallest portion of jealousy. Every man, and 
especially every Englishman (for here we seldom 
love or hate by halves), will recollect how many 
mad pranks he has played ; how many wild and 
ridiculous things he has said and done between 
the age of sixteen and that of twenty-two ; how 
many times a kind glance has scattered all his 
reasoning and resolutions to the winds ; how 
many times a cool look has plunged him into the 
deepest misery ! Poor Smith, who was at this 
age of love and madness, might, surely, be pre- 
sumed to have done the deed in a moment of 
" temporary mental derangement " He was an 
object of compassion in every humane, breast : 
he had parents and brethren and kindred and 
friends to lament his death, and to feel shame 
at the disgrace inflicted on his lifeless body : yet, 
HE was pronounced to be a felo de se, or self- 
murderer, and his body was put- into a hole by 
the way-side, with a stake driven down through 
it; while that of Romilly had mercy extended 
to it, on the ground that the act had been occa- 
sioned by " temporary mental derangement" 
caused by his grief for the death of his wife ! 

84. To reason with passion like that of the 
unfortunate Smith, is perfectly useless; you 
may, with as much chance of success, reason and 
remonstrate with the winds or the waves : if you 
make impression, it lasts but for a moment: 



cobbett's advice [Letter 

your effort, like an inadequate stoppage of waters, 
only adds, in the end, to the violence of the tor- 
rent : the current must have and will have its 
course, be the consequences what they may. In 
cases not quite so decided, absence, the sight of 
new faces, the sound of new voices, generally 
serve, if not as a radical cure, as a mitigation, at 
least, of the disease. But, the worst of it is, that, 
on this point, we have the girls (and women too) 
against us ! For they look upon it as right 
that every lover should be a little maddish ; and, 
every attempt to rescue him from the thraldom 
imposed by their charms, they look upon as an 
overt act of treason against their natural sove- 
reignty. No girl ever liked a young man less 
for his having done things foolish and wild and 
ridiculous, provided she was sure that love of her 
had been the cause : let her but be satisfied upon 
this score, and there are very few things which 
she will not forgive. And, though wholly 
unconscious of the fact, she is a great and 
sound philosopher after all. For, from the 
nature of things, the rearing of a family always 
has been, is, and must ever be, attended with 
cares and troubles, which must infallibly produce, 
at times, feelings to be combated and overcome 
by nothing short of that ardent affection which 
first brought the parties together. So that, talk as 
long as Parson Malthus likes about "moral re- 
straint], " and report as long as the Committees 



III.] TO A LOVER. 

of Parliament please about preventing "prema~ 
ture and improvident marriages" amongst the 
labouring classes, the passion that they would re- 
strain, while it is necessary to the existence of 
mankind, is the greatest of all the compensa- 
tions for the inevitable cares, troubles, hardships, 
and sorrows of life ; and, as to the marriages, if 
they could once be rendered universally pro- 
vident, every generous sentiment would quickly be 
banished from the world. 

85. The other description of lovers, with whom 
it* is useless to reason, are those who love ac- 
cording to the rules of arithmetic, or who mea- 
sure their matrimonial expectations by the chain 
of the land-surveyor. These are not love and 
marriage ; they are bargain and sale. Young 
men will naturally, and almost necessarily, fix their 
choice on young women in their own rank in 
life 5 because from habit and intercourse they will 
know them best. But, if the length of the girl's 
purse, present or contingent, be a consideration 
with the man, or, the length of his purse, present 
or contingent, be a consideration with her, it is an 
affair of bargain and sale. I know that kings, 
princes, and princesses are, in respect of mar- 
riage, restrained by the law : I know that nobles, 
if not thus restrained by positive law, are re- 
strained, in fact, by the very nature of their 
Order. And here is a disadvantage, which, as 
far as real enjoyment of life is concerned, more 



cobbett's advice [Letter 

than counterbalances all the advantages that 
they possess over the rest of the community. 
This disadvantage, generally speaking, pursues 
rank and riches downwards, till you approach 
very nearly to that numerous class who live by 
manual labour, becoming, however, less and less 
as you descend. You generally find even very 
vulgar rich men making a sacrifice of their 
natural and rational taste to their mean and 
ridiculous pride, and thereby providing for them- 
selves an ample supply of misery for life. By 
preferring "provident marriages" to marriages 
of love, they think to secure themselves against 
all the evils of poverty ; but, if poverty come, 
and come it may, and frequently does, in spite of 
the best laid plans, and best modes of conduct; 
if poverty come, then where is the counterbal' 
ance for that ardent mutual affection, which 
troubles, and losses, and crosses always increase 
rather than diminish, and which, amidst all the 
calamities that can befall a man, whispers to his 
heart, that his best possession is still left him 
unimpaired ? The Worcestershire Baronet, 
who has had to endure the sneers of fools on ac- 
count of his marriage with a beautiful and virtu- 
ous servant maid, would, w r ere the present ruinous 
measures of the Government to drive him from 
his mansion to a cottage, still have a source of 
happiness \ while many of those, who might fall 
in company with him, would, in addition to all 



III.] TO A LOVER. 

their other troubles, have, perhaps, to endure the 
reproaches of wives to whom poverty, or even 
humble life, would be insupportable, 

86. If marrying for the sake of money be, 
under any circumstances, despicable, if not dis- 
graceful ; if it be, generally speaking, a species 
of legal prostitution, only a little less shameful 
than that which, under some governments, is 
openly licensed for the sake of a tax ; if this be 
the case generally, what ought to be said of a 
young man, who, in the heyday of youth, should 
couple himself on to a libidinous woman, old 
enough, perhaps, to be his grandmother, ugly as 
the night-mare, offensive alike to the sight and 
the smell, and who should pretend to love her 
too : and all this merely for the sake of her 
money ? Why, it ought, and it, doubtless, would 
be said of him, that his conduct was a libel on 
both man and woman-kind ; that his name ought* 
for ever, to be synonymous with baseness and 
nastiness, and that in no age and in no nation* 
not marked by a general depravity of manners^ 
and total absence of all sense of shame, every 
associate, male or female, of such a man, or of 
his filthy mate, would be held in abhorrence. 
Public morality would drive such a hateful pair 
from society, and strict justice would hunt them 
from the face of the earth. 

87. Buonaparte could not be said to marry 
for money, but his motive was little better. It 



cobbett's advice [Letter 

was for dominion, for J>ower, for ambition, and 
that, too, of the most contemptible kind. I knew 
an American Gentleman, with whom Buona- 
parte had always been a great favourite; but 
the moment the news arrived of his divorce an 
second marriage, he gave him up. This piece oj 
grand,prostitution was too much to be defended* 
And the truth is, that Buonaparte might have 
dated his decline from the day of that marriage. 
My American friend said, u If I had been he, I 
"would, in the first place, have married the 
" poorest and prettiest girl in all France." If he 
had done this, he would, in all probability, have 
now been on an imperial throne, instead of being 
eaten by worms, at the bottom of a very deep 
hole in Saint Helena ; whence, however, his 
bones convey to the world the moral, that to 
marry for money, for ambition, or from any mo- 
tive other than the one pointed out by affection, 
is not the road to glory, to happiness, or to 
peace. 

88. Let me now turn from these two descrip- 
tions of lovers, with whom it is useless to reason, 
and address myself to you, my reader, whom I sup- 
pose to be a real lover, but not so smitten as to be 
bereft of your reason* You should never forget, 
that marriage, which is a state that every young 
person ought to have in view, is a thing tp last 
for life; and that, generally speaking, it is to 
make life happy, or miserable; for, though a man 



HI.] TO A LOVER. 

may bring his mind to something nearly a state 
of indifference, even that is misery, except with 
those who can hardly be reckoned amongst sen- 
sitive beings. Marriage brings numerous cares, 
which are amply compensated by the more nu- 
merous delights which are their companions. 
But, to have the delights, as well as the cares, 
the choice of the partner must be fortunate. I 
say fortunate ; for, after all, love, real love, im- 
jmssioned affection, is an ingredient so absolutely 
necessary, that wo perfect reliance can be placed 
on the judgment. Yet, the judgment may do 
something ; reason may have some influence; and, 
therefore, I here offer you my advice with regard 
to the exercise of that reason. 

89. The things which you ought to desire in a 
wife are, 1. Chastity; 2. sobriety; 3. industry; 
4. frugality; 5. cleanliness; 6. knowledge of do- 
mestic affairs ; 7. good temper ; 8. beauty. 

90. I. Chastity, perfect modesty, in word, 
deed, and even thought, is so essential, that, with- 
out it, no female is fit to be a wife. It is not 
enough that a young woman abstain from every 
thing approaching towards indecorum in her be- 
haviour towards men ; it is, with me, not enough 
that she cast down her eyes, or turn aside her 
head with a smile, when she hears an indelicate 
allusion : she ought to appear not to understand 
it, and to receive from it no more impression 
than if she were a post. A loose woman is a dis 



cqbbett's advice [Letter 

agreeable acquaintance : what must she be, then, 
as a wife? Love is so blind, and vanity is so 
busy in persuading us that our own qualities will 
be sufficient to ensure fidelity, that we are very 
apt to think nothing, or, at any rate, very little, of 
trifling symptoms of levity ; but if such symptoms 
show themselves now, we may be well assured, 
that we shall never possess the power of effecting 
a cure. If prudery mean false modesty, it is to 
be despised ; but if it mean modesty pushed to 
the utmost extent, I confess that 1 like it. fc Your 
"free and hearty" girls I have liked very well to 
talk and laugh with ; but never, for one moment, 
did it enter into my mind that I could have en- 
dured a " free and. hearty" girl for a wife. The 
thing is, I repeat, to last for life ; it is to be a 
counterbalance for troubles and misfortunes ; and 
it must, therefore, be perfect, or it had better 
not be at all. To say that one despises jealousy 
is foolish : it is a thing to be lamented ; but the 
very elements of it ought to be avoided. Gross 
indeed is the beast, for he is unworthy of the 
name of man; nasty indeed is the wretch, who 
can even entertain the thought of putting himself 
between a pair of sheets with a wife of whose infi- 
delity he possesses the proof; but, in such cases, 
a man ought to be very slow to believe appear- 
ances; and he ought not to decide against his 
wife but upon the clearest proof. The last, and, 
indeed, the only effectual safeguard is, to begin 



III.] TO A LOVER. 

well ; to make a good choice; to let the begin- 
ning be such as to render infidelity and jealousy 
next to impossible. If you begin in grossness ; 
if you couple yourself on to one with whom you 
have taken liberties, infidelity is the natural 
and just consequence. When a Peer of the 
realm, who had not been over-fortunate in his 
matrimonial affairs, was urging Major Cart- 
wright to seek for nothing more than " mode* 
rate reform/' the Major (forgetting the domestic 
circumstances of his Lordship) asked him how 
he should relish " moderate chastity" in a wife! 
The bare use of the two words, thus coupled to- 
gether, is sufficient to excite disgust. Yet w T ith 
this " moderate chastity" you must be, and 
ought to be, content, if you have entered into 
marriage with one, in whom you have ever dis- 
covered the slightest approach towards lewdness^ 
either in deeds, words, or looks. To marry has 
been your own act : you have made the contract 
for your own gratification; you knew the charac- 
ter of the other party ; and the children, if any, 
or the community, are not to be the sufferers for 
your gross and corrupt passion. "Moderate 
chastity" is all that you have, in fact, contracted 
for : you have it, and you have no reason to com- 
plain. When I come to address myself to the 
husband, I shall have to say more upon this sub- 
ject, which I dismiss for the present with ob- 
serving, that my observation has convinced me, 



cobbett's advice [Letter 

that, when families are rendered unhappy from 
the existence of " moderate chastity/' the fault, 
first or last, has been in the man, ninety-nine 
times out of every hundred, 

91. Sobriety, By sobriety I do not mean 
merely an absence of drinking to a state of in- 
toxication; for, if that be hateful in a man, 
what must it be in a woman ! There is a Latin 
proverb, which says, that wine, that is to say, 
intoxication, brings forth truth. Whatever it 
may do in this way, in men, in women it is sure, 
unless prevented by age or by salutary ugliness, 
to produce a moderate, and a very moderate, 
portion of chastity. There never was a drunken 
woman, a woman who loved strong drink, who 
was chaste, if the opportunity of being the con- 
trary presented itself to her. There are cases 
where health requires wine, and even small por- 
tions of more ardent liquor ; but (reserving what 
I have further to say on this point, till I come 
to the conduct of the husband) ijoung unmarried 
women can seldom stand in need of these sti- 
mulants ; and, at any rate, only in cases of well- 
known definite ailments. Wine ! " only a glass 
or two of wine at dinner, or so " ! As soon as 
have married a girl whom I had thought liable to 
be persuaded to drink, habitually, "only a glass or 
two of wine at dinner, or so 5 " as soon as have 
married such a girl, I would have taken a 
strumpet from the streets. And it has not re- 



III.] TO A LOVER. 

quired age to give me this way of thinking : it 
has always been rooted in my mind from the mo- 
ment that 1 began to think the girls prettier than 
posts. There are few things so disgusting as a 
guzzling woman. A gormandizing one is bad 
enough ; but, one who tips off the liquor with 
an appetite, and exclaims "good! good!" by a 
smack of her lips, is fit for nothing but a brothel. 
There may be cases, amongst the AarcMabouring 
women, such as reapers, for instance, especially 
when they have children at the breast; there may 
be cases, where very Aarrf-working women may 
stand in need of a little good beer ; beer, which, 
if taken in immoderate quantities, would pro- 
duce intoxication. But, while I only allow the 
possibility of the existence of such cases, I deny 
the necessity of any strong drink at all in every 
other case. Yet, in this metropolis, it is the 
general custom for tradesmen, journeymen, and 
even labourers, to have regularly on their tables 
the big brewers' poison, twice in every day, and 
at the rate of not less than a pot to a person, 
women, as well as men, as the allowance for the 
day. A pot of poison a day, at five pence the 
pot, amounts to seven pounds and two shillings 
in the year ! Man and wife suck down, in this 
way, fourteen pounds four shillings a year ! Is 
it any wonder that they are clad in rags, that 
they are skin and bone, and that their children 
are covered with filth ? 



cobbett's advice [Letter 

92. But; by the word Sobriety in a young 
woman, I mean a great deal more than even a 
rigid abstinence from that love of drink, which I 
am not to suppose, and which I do not believe, 
to exist any thing like generally amongst the 
young women of this country. I mean a great 
deal more than this ; I mean sobriety of conduct. 
The word sober, and its derivatives, do not con- 
fine themselves to matters of drink : they express 
steadiness, seriousness, carefulness, scrupulous 
propriety of conduct ; and they are thus used 
amongst country people in many parts of Eng- 
land. When a Somersetshire fellow makes too 
free with a girl, she reproves him with, " come ! 
be sober ! " And, when we wish a team, or any 
thing, to be moved on steadily and with great 
care, we cry out to the carter, or other operator, 
ft Soberly, soberly ." Now, this species of sobriety 
is a great qualification in the person you* mean to 
make your wife. Skipping, capering, romping, 
rattling girls are very amusing where all costs and 
other consequences are out of the question; and 
they may become sober in the Somersetshire sense 
ef the word. But while you have no certainty 
of this, you have a presumptive argument on the 
other side. To be sure, when girls are mere chil- 
dren, they are to play and romp like children. 
But, when they arrive at that age which turns 
their thoughts towards that sort of connexion 
which is to be theirs for life ; when they begin 



III.] TO A LOVER. 

to think of having the command of a house, how- 
ever small or poor, it is time for them to cast 
away the levity of the child. It is natural, nor 
is it very wrong, that I know of, for children to 
like to gad about and to see all sorts of strange 
sights, though I do not approve of this even in 
children : but, if I could not have found a young 
woman (and I am sure I never should have mar- 
ried an old one) who I was not sure possessed all 
the qualities expressed by the word sobriety, I 
should have remained a bachelor to the end of 
that life, which, in that case, would, I am satis- 
fied, have terminated without my having per- 
formed a thousandth part of those labours which 
have beefa, and are, in spite of all political pre- 
judice, the wonder of all who have seen, or heard 
of, them. Scores of gentlemen have, at different 
times, expressed to me their surprise, that I was 
" always in spirits ; " that nothing pulled me 
down ; and the truth is, that, throughout nearly 
forty years of troubles, losses, and crosses, as- 
sailed all the while by more numerous and power- 
ful enemies than ever man had before to contend 
with, and performing, at the same time, labours 
greater than man ever before performed; all those 
labours requiring mental exertion, and some of 
them mental exertion of the highest order ; the 
truth is, that, throughout the whole of this long 
time of troubles and of labours 3 1 have never known 
a single hour of real anxiety ; the troubles have 
been no troubles to me; I have not known what 



cobbett's advice [Letter 

lowness of spirits meaned ; have been more 
gay, and felt less care, than any bachelor that 
ever lived. "You are always in spirits, Cobbett ! " 
To be sure ; for why should I not ? Poverty I 
have always set at defiance, and, I could, there- 
fore, defy the temptations of riches ; and, as to 
home and children, I had taken care to provide 
myself with an inexhaustible store of that " so- 
briety" which I am so strongly recommending 
my reader to provide himself with ; or, if he can- 
not do that, to deliberate long before he ventures 
on the life-enduring matrimonial voyage. This 
sobriety is a title to trust-worthiness ; and this, 
young man, is the treasure that you ought to 
prize far above all others. Miserable is the hus- 
band, who, when he crosses the threshold of his 
house, carries with him doubts and fears and 
suspicions. I do not mean suspicions of the 
fidelity of his wife, but of her care, frugality, at- 
tention to his interests, and to the health and 
morals of his children. Miserable is the man, 
who cannot leave all unlocked, and who is not 
sure, quite certain, that all is as safe as if grasped 
in his own hand. He is the happy husband, 
who can go away, at a moment's warning, leav- 
ing his house and his family with as little an- 
xiety as he quits an inn, not more fearing to find, 
on his return, any thing wrong,' than he would 
fear a discontinuance of the rising and setting 
of the sun, and if, as in my case, leaving books 
and papers all lying about at sixes and sevens, 



III.] TO A LOVER. 

finding them arranged in proper order, and the 
room; during the lucky interval, freed from the 
effects of his and his ploughman's or gardener's 
dirty shoes. Such a man has no real cares $ 
such a man has no troubles ; and this is the sort 
of life that I have led. I h ave had all the nume- 
rous and indescribable delights of home and 
children, and, at the same time, all the bachelor's 
freedom from domestic cares ; and, to this 
cause, far more than to any other, my readers 
owe those labours, which I never could have per- 
formed, if even the slightest degree of want of 
confidence at home had ever once entered into 
my mind. 

93. But, in order to possess this precious trust- 
worthiness, you must, if you can, exercise your 
reason in the choice of your partner. If she be 
vain of her person, very fond of dress, fond of 
flattery at all, given to gadding about, fond of 
what are called parties of pleasure, or coquetish, 
though in the least degree ; if either of these, 
she never will be trust- worthy : she cannot change 
her nature ; and, if you marry her, you will be 
unjust, if you expect trust- worthiness at her 
hands. But, besides this, even if you find in 
her that innate a sobriety" of which I have 
been speaking, there requires, on your part, and 
that at once too, confidence and trust without 
any limit. Confidence is, in this case, nothing 
unless it be reciprocal. To have a trust-worthy 
F 



cobbett's advice [Letter 

wife, you must begin by showing her, even before 
you are married, that you have no suspicions, no 
fears, no doubts, with regard to her. Many a 
man has been discarded by a virtuous girl, merely 
on account of his querulous conduct. All women 
despise jealous men; and, if they marry such, 
their motive is other than that of affection. 
Therefore, begin by proofs of unlimited confi- 
dence; and, as example may serve to assist pre- 
cept, and as I never have preached that which I 
have not practised, I will give you the history of 
my own conduct in this respect. 

94. When I first saw my wife, she was thirteen 
years old, and I was within about a month of 
twenty-one. She was the daughter of a Serjeant 
of artillery, and I was the Serjeant-Major of a 
regiment of foot, both stationed in forts near 
the city of St. John in the Province of New- 
Brunswick. I sat in the same room with her, for 
about an hour, in company with others, and I 
made up my mind, that she was the very girl for 
me. That I thought her beautiful is certain, for 
that I had always said should be an indispensable 
qualification ; but, I saw in her what I deemed 
marks of that sobriety of conduct of which*! 
have said so much, and which has been by far 
the greatest blessing of my life. It was now 
dead of winter, and, of course, the snow several 
feet deep on the ground, and the weather pierc- 
ing cold. It was my habit, when I had done my 



III.] TO A LOVER. 

morning's writing, to go out at break of day to 
take a walk on a hill at the foot of which our 
barracks lay. In about three mornings after I 
had first seen her, I had, by an invitation to break- 
fast with me, got up two young men to join me 
in my walk; and our road lay by the house of 
her father and mother. It was hardly light, but' 
she w r as out on the snow, scrubbing out a wash- 
ing-tub. " That's the girl for me," said I, when 
we had got out of her hearing. One of these 
young men came to England soon afterwards; 
and he, who keeps an inn in Yorkshire, came over 
to Preston, at the time of the election, to verify 
whether I were the same man. When he found 
that I was, he appeared surprised; but what was 
his surprise, when I told him that those tall young 
men, whom he saw around me, were the sons of 
that pretty little girl that he and I saw scrubbing 
out the washing- tub on the snow in New-Bruns- 
wick at day-break in the morning ! 

95. From the day that I first spoke to her, I 
never had a thought of her ever being the wife of 
any other man, more than I had a thought of 
her being transformed into a chest of drawers ; 
and I formed my resolution at once, to marry her 
as soon as we could get permission, and to get 
out of the army as soon as I could. So that this 
matter was, at once, settled as firmly as if written 
in the book of fate. At the end of about six 
months, my regiment, and I along with it, were 
I f2 



cobbett's advice [Letter 

removed to Frederickton, a distance of a hun- 
dred miles, up the river of St. John; and, which 
was worse, the artillery were expected to go off 
to England a year or two before our regiment ! 
The artillery went, and she along with them; 
and now it was that I acted a part becomimg a 
real and sensible lover. I was aware, that, when 
she got to that gay place, Woolwich, the house 
of her father and mother, necessarily visited by 
numerous persons not the most select, might be- 
come unpleasant to her, and I did not like, be- 
sides, that she should continue to work hard. I 
had saved a hundred and fifty guineas, the earn- 
ings of my early hours, in writing for the pay- 
master, the quartermaster, and others, in addi- 
tion to the savings of my own pay. I sent her all 
my money, before she sailed ; and wrote to her to 
beg of her, if she found her home uncomfortable, 
to hire a lodging with respectable people : and, 
at any rate, not to spare the money, by any means, 
but to buy herself good clothes, and to live with- 
out hard work, until I arrived in England ; and I, 
in order to induce her to lay out the money, told 
her that I should get plenty more before I came 
home. 

96. As the malignity of the devil would have it, 
we were kept abroad two years longer than our 
time, Mr. Pitt (England not being so tame then 
as she is now) having knocked up a dust with 
Spain about Nootka Sound. Oh, how I cursed 



HI.] TO A LOVER. 

Nootka Sounds and poor bawling Pitt too, I am 
afraid ! At the end of four years, however, 
home I came 5 landed at Portsmouth, and got 
my discharge from the army by the great kind- 
ness of poor Lord Edward Fitzgerald, 
who was then the Major of my regiment I 
found my little girl a servant of all work (and 
hard work it was), at five pounds a year, in the 
house of a Captain Brisac : and, without hardly 
saying a word about the matter, she put into my 
hands the ivhole of my hundred and fifty guineas 
unbroken ! 

97. Need I tell the reader what my feelings 
were ? Need I tell kind-hearted English parents 
what effect this anecdote must have produced on 
the minds of our children ? Need I attempt to 
describe what effect this example ought to have 
on every young woman who shall do me the honour 
to read this book ? Admiration of her conduct, 
and self-gratulation on this indubitable proof of 
the soundness of my own judgment were now 
added to my love of her beautiful person. 

98. Now, I do not say that there are not 
many young women of this country who would, 
under similar circumstances, have acted as my 
wife did in this case; on the contrary, I hope, 
and do sincerely believe, that there are. But 
when her age is considered ; when we reflect, 
that she was living in a place crowded, literally 
crowded, with gayly-dressed and handsome young 



cobbett's advice > [Letter 

men, many of whom really far richer and in 
higher rank than I was, and scores of them ready 
to offer her their hand ; when we reflect that she 
was living amongst young women who put upon 
their backs every shilling that they could come 
at; when we see her keeping the bag of gold 
untouched, and working Jiard to provide herself 
with but mere necessary apparel, and doing 
this while she was passing from fourteen to 
eighteen years of age ; when we view the whole 
of the circumstances, we must say that here 
is an example, which, while it reflects honour 
on her sex, ought to have weight with every 
young woman whose eyes or ears this relation 
shall reach. 

99. If any young man imagine, that this great 
sobriety of conduct, in young women, must be 
accompanied with seriousness approaching to 
gttiPWj ne is> according to my experience and 
observation, very much deceived. The contrary 
is the fact ; for I have found that as, amongst 
men, your jovial companions are, except over the 
bottle, the dullest and most insipid of souls ; so, 
amongst women, the gay, the rattling and laugh- 
ing are, unless some party of pleasure, or some- 
thing out of domestic life, is going on, gene- 
rally in the dumps and blue-devils. Some sti- 
mulus is always craved after by this description 
of women; some sight to be seen, something to 
see or to hear other than what is to be found at 



III.] TO A LOVER. 

home, which, as it affords no incitement, nothing 
rt to raise and keep up the spirits" is looked upon 
merely as a place to be at for want of a better ; 
merely a place for eating and drinking, and the 
like ; merely a biding place, whence to sally in 
search of enjoyments. A greater curse than a 
wife of this description, it would be somewhat 
difficult to find ; and, in your character of Lover, 
you are to provide against it. I hate a dull, me- 
lancholy, moping thing : I could not have existed 
in the same house with such a thing for a single 
month. The mopers are, too, all giggle at other 
times : the gaiety is for others, and the moping 
for the husband, to comfort him, happy man, 
when he is alone : plenty of smiles and of badi- 
nage for others, and for him to participate with 
others ; but the moping is reserved exclusively for 
him. One hour she is capering about, as if re- 
hearsing a jig ; and, the next, sighing "to the 
motion of a lazy needle, or weeping over a novel : 
and this is called sentiment! Music, indeed! 
Give me a mother singing to her clean and fat 
and rosy baby, and making the house ring with 
her extravagant and hyperbolical encomiums on 
it. That is the music which is a the food of 
love j " and not the formal, pedantic noises, an 
affectation of skill in which is now-a-days the 
ruin of half the young couples in the middle rank 
of life. Let any man observe, as I so frequently 
have, with delight, the excessive fondness of the 
G 



cobbeit's advice [Letter 

labouring people for their children. Let him 
observe with what pride they dress them out on 
a Sunday, with means deducted from their own 
scanty meals. Let him observe the husband, who 
has toiled all the week like a horse, nursing the 
baby, while the wife is preparing the bit of din- 
ner. Let him observe them both abstaining from 
a sufficiency, lest the children should feel the 
pinchings of hunger. Let him observe, in short, 
the whole of their demeanour, the real mutual 
affection, evinced, not in words, but in unequivo- 
cal deeds. Let him observe these things,, and, 
having then cast a look at the lives of the great 
and wealthy, he will say, with me, that, when a 
man is choosing his partner for life, the dread of 
poverty ought to be cast to the winds. A labour- 
er's cottage, on a Sunday ; the husband or wife 
having a baby in arms, looking at two or three 
ofder ones playing between the flower-borders 
going from the wicket to the door, is, according 
to my taste, the most interesting object that eyes 
ever beheld; and, it is an object to be beheld in 
no country upon earth but England. In France, 
a labourer's cottage means a shed with a dung- 
Tieap before the door ; and it means much about 
the same in America, where it is wholly inex- 
cusable. In riding once, about five years ago, 
from Petworth to Horsham, on a Sunday in the 
afternoon, I came to a solitary cottage which 
stood at about twenty yards distance from the 



III.] TO A LOVER, 

road. There was the wife with the baby in her 
arms, the husband teaching another child to walk, 
while four more were at play before them. I 
stopped and looked at them for some time, and 
then, turning my horse, rode up to the wicket, 
getting into talk by asking the distance to Hor- 
sham. I found that the man ^worked chiefly in 
the woods, and that he was doing pretty w r ell. 
The wife was then only twenty-two, and the man 
only twenty -five. She was a pretty woman, even 
for Sussex, which, not excepting Lancashire, 
contains the prettiest women in England. He w r as 
a very fine and stout young man. " Why/' said I, 
<c how many children do you reckon to have at 
last }■" " I do not care how many/' said the 
man : " God never sends mouths without sending 
meat." " Did you ever hear," said I, " of one 
Parson Malthus ? " " No, sir." " Why, if 
" he were to hear of your works, he would be 
" outrageous ; for he wants an act of parliament 
cc to prevent poor people from marrying young, 
" and from having such lots of children." " Oh ! 
the brute ]" exclaimed the wife ; while the hus- 
band laughed, thinking that I was joking. I 
asked the man whether he had ever had relief 
from the parish; and upon his answering in the 
negative, I took out my purse, took from it 
enough to bait my horse at Horsham, and to 
clear my turnpikes to Worth, whither I was 
going in order to stay awhile, and gave him all 
g2 



cobbett's advice [Letter 

the rest. Now, is it not a shamet, is it not a sin 
of all sins, that people like these should, by acts 
of the government, be reduced to such misery as 
to be induced to abandon their homes and their 
country, to seek, in a foreign land, the means of 
preventing themselves and their children from 
starving ? And .this has been, and now is, actu- 
ally the case with many such families in this same 
county of Sussex ! 

100. An ardent-minded young man (who, by- 
the-by, will, as I am afraid, have been wearied 
by this rambling digression) may fear, that this 
great sobriety of conduct in a young wjman, 
for which I have been so strenuously contending, 
argues a want o£\hdXivarmth, which he naturally 
so much desires ; and, if my observation and ex- 
perience warranted the entertaining of this fear, 
I should say, had I to live my life over again, 
give me the ivarmth, and I will stand my chance 
as to the rest. But, this observation and this ex- 
perience! tell me the contrary; they tell me that 
levity is, ninety-nine times out of a hundred, the 
companion of a leant of ardent feeling. Prosti- 
tutes never love, and, for the far greater part, never 
did. Their passion, which is more mere animal 
than any thing else, is easily gratified y they, like 
rakes, change not only without pain, but with 
pleasure ; that is to say, pleasure as great as they 
can enjoy. Women of light minds have seldom 
any ardent passion j love is a mere name, unless 



III.] TO A LOVER. 

confined to one object ; and young women, in 
whom levity of conduct is observable, will not be 
thus restricted. I do not, however, recommend a 
young man to be too sevens in judging, where the 
conduct does not go beyond mere levity, and is 
not bordering on loose conduct ; for something 
depends here upon constitution and animal spirits, 
and something also upon the maimers of the 
country. That levity, which, in a French girl, I 
should not have thought a great deal of, would 
have frightened me away from an English or an 
American girl. When I was in France, just after 
I was married, there happened to be amongst our 
acquaintance a gay, sprightly girl, of about seven- 
teen. Lwas remonstrating with her, one day, on 
the facility with which she seemed to shift her 
smiles from object to object ; and she, stretching 
one arm out in an upward direction, the other in 
a downward direction, raising herself upon one 
foot, leaning her body on one side, and thus 
throwing herself into a flying attitude, answered 
my grave lecture by singing, in a very sweet 
voice (significantly bowing her head and smiling 
at the same time), the following lines from the 
vaudeville, in the play of Figaro : 

Si l'amour a des allies ; 
N'est ce pas pour voltiger ? 

That is, if love has wings, is it not to flutter 
about with ? The wit, argument, and manner, all 
together, silenced me. She, after I left France, 



cobbett's advice [Letter 

married a very worthy man, has had a large family, 
and has been, and is, a most excellent wife and 
mother. But that which does sometimes well 
in France, does not do here at all. Our manners 
are more grave : steadiness is the rule, and levity 
the exception. Love may voltige in France \ but, 
in England, it cannot, with safety to the lover : 
and it is a truth which, I believe, no man of atten- 
tive observation will deny, that, as, in general, 
English wives are more warm in their conjugal 
attachments than those of France, so, with re- 
gard to individuals, that those English women 
who are the most light in their manners, and who 
are the least constant in their attachments, have 
the smallest portion of that ivarmth, that inde- 
scribable passion which God has given to human 
beings as the great counterbalance to all the 
sorrows, and sufferings of life. 

101. Industry. By industi^y, I do not mean 
merely laboriousness, merely labour or activity of 
body, for purposes of gain or of saving; for there 
may be industry amongst those who have more 
money than they know w T ell what to do with : and 
there may be lazy ladies, as well as lazy farmers* 
and tradesmen's wives. There is no state of life in 
which industry in the wife is not necessary to the 
happiness and prosperity of the family, at the head 
of the household affairs of which she is placed. 
If she be lazy, there will be lazy servants, and, 
which is a great deal worse, children habitually 



III.] TO A LOVER. 

lazy : every thing, however necessary to be clone, 
will be put off to the last moment : then it w r ill 
be done badly, and, in many cases, not at all : 
the dinner will be too late; the journey or the visit 
will be tardy ; inconveniencies of all sorts will be 
continually arising : there will always be a heavy 
arrear of things unperformed; and this, even 
amongst the most wealthy of all, is a great curse ; 
for, if they have no business imposed upon them 
by necessity, they make business for themselves ; 
life would be unbearable without it : and therefore 
a lazy woman must always be a curse, be her rank 
or station what it may. 

102. But, who is to tell whether a girl will 
make an industrious woman ? How is the pur- 
blind lover especially, to be able to ascertain whe- 
ther she, whose smiles and dimples and bewitch- 
ing lips have half bereft him of his senses ; how 
is he to be able to judge, from any thing that he 
can see, whether the beloved object will be in- 
dustrious or lazy ? Why, it is very difficult : it is a 
matter that reason has very little to do with; but 
there are, nevertheless, certain outward and visi- 
ble signs, from which a man, not wholly deprived 
of the use of his reason, may form a pretty accu- 
rate judgment as to this matter. It was a story 
in Philadelphia, some years ago, that a young 
man, w 7 ho was courting one of three sisters, hap- 
pened to be on a visit to her, when all the three 
were present, and when one said to the others, 



cobbett's advice [Letter 

" I wonder where our needle is." Upon which 
he withdrew, as soon as w r as consistent with the 
rules of politeness, resolved never to think more 
of a girl who possessed a needle only in partner- 
ship, and who, it appeared, was not too well in- 
formed as to the place where even that share was 
deposited. 

103. This was, to be sure, a very flagrant in- 
stance of a want of industry ; for, if the third 
part of the use of a needle satisfied her when 
single, it was reasonable to anticipate that mar- 
riage would banish that useful implement alto- 
gether. But such instances are seldom suffered 
to come in contact with the eyes and ears of the 
lover, to disguise all defects from whom is the 
great business, not only of the girl herself, but of 
her whole family. There are, however, certain 
outward signs, which, if attended to with care^ 
will serve as pretty sure guides. And, first, if 
you find the tongue lazy, you may be nearly cer- 
tain that the hands and feet are the same. By 
laziness of the tongue I do not mean silence ; I 
do not mean an absence of talk, for that is, in 
most cases, very good ; but, I mean, a slow and 
soft utterance ; a sort of sijhing out of the words 
instead of speaking them ; a sort of letting the 
sounds fall out, as if the party were sick at sto- 
mach. The pronunciation of an industrious person 
is generally quick, distinct, and the voice, if not 
strong, firm at the least. Not masculine ; as 



III.] TO A LOVER. 

feminine as possible; not a croak nor a bawl, 
but a quick, distinct, and sound voice. Nothing 
is much more disgusting than what the sensible 
country people call a maw-mouthed woman. A 
maw-mouthed man is bad enoagh : he is sure to 
be a lazy fellow : but, a woman of this descrip- 
tion, in addition to her laziness, soon becomes 
the most disgusting of mates. In this whole 
world nothing is much more hateful than a fe- 
male's under jaw, lazily moving up and down, and 
letting out a long string of half-articulate sounds. 
It is impossible for any man, who has any spirit 
in him, to love such a woman for any length of 
time. 

104. Look a little, also, at the labours of the 
teeth, for these correspond with those of the 
other members of the body, and with the opera- 
tions of the mind. " Quick at meals, quick at 
work" is a saying as old as the hills, in this, 
the most industrious nation upon earth ; and 
never was there a truer saying. But fashion 
comes in here, and decides that you shall not be 
quick at meals ; that you shall sit and be earn- 
ing on the affair of eating for an hour, or more. 
Good God ! what have I not suffered on this ac- 
count ! However, though she must sit as long 
as the rest, and though she must join in the per- 
formance (for it is a real performance) unto the 
end of the last scene, she cannot make her teeth 
abandon their character. She may, and must, 
05 



cobbett's advice [Letter 

suffer the slice to linger on the plate, and must 
make the supply slow, in order to fill up thetimej 
but when she does bite, she cannot well disguise 
what nature has taught her to do; and you may 
be assured, that if her jaws move in low time, 
and if she rather squeeze than bite the food; if she 
so deal with it as to leave you in doubt as to 
whether she mean finally to admit or reject it ; 
if she deal with it thus, set her down as being, in 
her very nature, incorrigibly lazy. Never mind 
the pieces of needle-work, the tambouring, the 
maps of the world made by her needle. Get to 
see her at work upon a mutton chop, or a bit of 
bread and cheese ; and, if she deal quickly with 
these, you have a pretty good security for that 
activity, that stirring industry, without which a 
wife is a burden instead of being a help. And, 
as to love, it cannot live for more than a month 
or two (in the breast of a man of spirit) towards 
a lazy woman. 

105. Another mark of industry is, a quick step, 
and a somewhat heavy tread, showing that the 
foot comes down with a hearty good will; and if 
the body lean a little forward, and the eyes keep 
steadily in the same direction, while the feet are 
going, so much the better, for these discover 
earnestness to arrive at the intended point. I do 
not like, and I never liked, your sauntering, soft- 
stepping girls, who move as if they were perfectly 
indifferent as to the result; and, as to the love 



III.] TO A LOVER. 

part of the story, whoever expects ardent and 
lasting affection from one of these sauntering 
girls, will, when too late, find his mistake: the 
character runs the same all the way through ; and 
no man ever yet saw a sauntering girl, who 
did not, when married, make a maivkish wife, and 
a cold-hearted mother; cared very little for either 
by husband or children ; and, of course, having no 
store of those blessings which are the natural re- 
sources to apply to in sickness and in old age, 

106. Early-rising is another mark of industry; 
and though, in the higher situations of life, it 
may be of no importance in a mere pecuniary 
point of view, it is, even there, of importance in 
other respects ; for it is^ I should imagine, pretty 
difficult to keep love alive towards a woman who 
never sees the cleiv, never beholds the rising sun, 
and who constantly comes directly from a reek- 
ing bed to the breakfast table, and there chews 
about, without appetite, the choicest morsels of 
human food. A man might, perhaps, endure this 
for a month or two, without being disgusted ; but 
that is ample allowance of time. And, as to peo- 
ple in the middle rank of life, where a living and 
a provision for children is to be sought by labour 
of some sort or other, late rising in the wife is 
certain rum; and, never was there yet an early- 
rising wife, who had been a late-rising girl. If 
brought up to late rising, she will like it ; it will 
be her habit ; she will, when married, never want 



cobbett's advice [Letter 

excuses for indulging in the habit ; at first she 
will be indulged without bounds; to make a 
change afterwards will be difficult; it will be 
deemed a wrong done to her ; she will ascribe it 
to diminished affection ; a quarrel must ensue, 
or, the husband must submit to be ruined, or, at 
the very least, to see half the fruit of his labour 
snored and lounged away. And, is this being 
rigid? Is it being harsh; is it being hard upon 
women ? Is it the offspring of the frigid severity 
of age ? It is none of these : it arises from an 
ardent desire to promote the happiness, and to add 
to the natural, legitimate, and salutary influence, 
of the female sex. The, tendency of this advice 
is to promote the preservation of their health ; to 
prolong the duration of their beauty; to cause 
them to be beloved to the last day of their lives; 
and to give them, during the whole of those lives, 
weight and consequence, of which laziness would 
render them wholly unworthy. 

107. Frugality. This means the contrary of 
extravagance. It does not mean stinginess; it 
does not mean a pinching of the belly, nor a 
stripping of the back ; but it means an abstain- 
ing from all unnecessary expenditure, and all 
unnecessary use, of goods of any and of every 
sort; and a quality of great importance it is, 
whether the rank in life be high or low. Some 
people are, indeed, so rich, they have such an 
overabundance of money and goods, that how to 



III.] TO A LOVER. 

get rid of them would, to a looker-on, seem to 
be their only difficulty. But while the inconve- 
nience of even these immense masses is not too 
great to be overcome by a really extravagant wo- 
man, who jumps with joy at a basket of straw- 
berries at a guinea an ounce, and who would not 
give a straw for green peas later in the year than 
January; while such a dame would lighten the 
bags of a loan-monger, or shorter the rent-roll 
of half-a-dozen peerages amalgamated into one 
possession, she would, with very little study and 
application of her talent, send a nobleman of 
ordinary estate to the poor-house or the pension 
list, which last may be justly regarded as the poor- 
book of the aristocracy. How many noblemen 
and gentlemen, of fine estates, have been ruined 
and degraded by the extravagance of their wives ! 
More frequently by their own extravagance, per- 
haps; but, in numerous instances, by that of 
those whose duty it is to assist in upholding their 
stations by husbanding their fortunes. 

108. If this be the case amongst the opulent, 
who have estates to draw upon, what must be the 
consequences of a want of frugality in the mid- 
dle and lower ranks of life ? Here it must be 
fatal, and especially amongst that description of 
persons whose wives have, in many cases, the re- 
ceiving as well as the expending of money. In 
such a case, there wants nothing but extrava- 
gance in the wife to make ruin as sure as the ar- 



cobbett's advice [Letter 

rival of old age. To obtain security against this 
is very difficult; yet, if the lover be not quite 
blind, he may easily discover a propensity towards 
extravagance. The object of his addresses will, 
nine times out of ten, not be the manager of a 
house; but she must have her dress, and other 
little matters under her control. If she be costly 
in these ; if, in these, she step above her rank, or 
even to the top of it ; if she purchase all she is 
able to purchase, and prefer the showy .to the use- 
ful, the gay and the fragile to the less sightly and 
more durable, he may be sure that the disposition 
will cling to her through life. If he perceive in 
her a taste for costly food, costly furniture, costly 
amusements ; if he find her love of gratification to 
be bounded only by her want of means ; if he find 
her full of admiration of the trappings of the 
rich, and of desire to be able to imitate them, 
he may be pretty sure that she will not spare his 
purse, when once she gets her hand into it; and, 
therefore, if he can bid adieu to her charms, the 
sooner he does it the better. 

109. The outward and visible and vulgar signs 
of extravagance are rings, broaches, bracelets, 
buckles, necklaces, diamonds (real or mock), and, 
in short, all the hard-ware which women put 
upon their persons. These things may be proper 
enough in palaces, or in scenes resembling pala- 
ces; but, when they make their appearance 
amongst people in the middle rank of life, where, 



III.] ' TO A LOVER. 

after all, they only serve to show that poverty in 
the parties which they wish to disguise ; when 
the nasty, mean, tawdry things make their ap- 
pearance in this rank of life, they are the sure 
indications of a disposition that will always be 
straining at what it can never attain. To marry 
a girl of this disposition is really self-destruction. 
You never can have either property or peace. 
Earn her a horse to ride, she will want a gig : 
earn the gig, she will want a chariot : get her 
that, she will long for a coach and four : and, 
from stage to stage, she will torment you to the 
end of her or your days; for, still there will be 
somebody with a finer equipage than you can give 
her; and, as long as this is the case, you will 
never have rest. Reason would tell her, that she 
could never be at the top; that she must stop at 
some point short of that; and that, therefore, all 
expenses in the rivalship are so much thrown 
away. But, reason and broaches and bracelets 
do not go in company : the girl who has not the 
sense to perceive that her person is disfigured, 
and not beautified, by parcels of brass and tin (for 
they are generally little better) and other hard- 
ware, stuck about her body ; the girl that is so 
foolish as not to perceive, that, when silks and 
cottons and cambrics, in their neatest form, have 
done their best, nothing more is to be done ; the 
girl that cannot perceive this is too great a fool 
to be trusted with the purse of any man. 



cobbett's advice [Letter 

110. Cleanliness. This is a capital ingre- 
dient ; for there never yet was, and there never 
will be, love of long duration, sincere and ardent 
love, in any man, towards a "filthy mate." I 
mean any man in England, or in those parts of 
America where the people have descended from 
the English. I do not say, that there are not 
men enough, even in England, to live peaceably 
and even contentedly, with dirty, sluttish women m 9 
for, there are some who seem to like the filth well 
enough. But what I contend for is this : that 
there never can exist, for any length of time, 
ardent affection, in any man towards a woman 
who is filthy either in her person, or in her 
house affairs. Men may be careless as to their 
own persons ; they may, from the nature of their 
business, or from their want of time to adhere to 
neatness in dress, be slovenly in their own dress 
and habits 5 but, they do not relish this in their 
wives, who must still have charms ; and charms 
and filth do not go together. 

111. It is not dress that the husband wants to 
be perpetual : it is not finery; but cleanliness in 
every thing. The French women dress enough, 
especially when they sally forth. My excellent 
neighbour, Mr. John Tredwell, of Long Island, 
used to say, that the French were "pigs in the 
parlour, and peacocks on the promenade 5 " an 
alliteration which "Canning's self" might have 
envied! This occasional cleanliness is not the 



III.] TO A LOVER. 

thing that an English or an American husband 
wants: he wants it always; indoors as well as 
out; by night as well as by day; on the floor as 
well as on the table; and, however he may 
grumble about the "fuss" and the " expense" of 
it, he would grumble more if he had it not. I 
once saw a picture representing the amusements 
of Portuguese Lovers ; that is to say, three or 
four young men, dressed in gold or silver laced 
clothes, each having a young girl, dressed like a 
princess, and affectionately engaged in hunting 
down and killing the vermin in his head ! This 
was, perhaps, an exaggeration; but that it 
should have had the shadow of foundation, was 
enough to fill me with contempt for the whole 
nation. 

112. The signs of cleanliness are, in the first 
place, a clean skin. An English girl will hardly let 
her lover see the stale dirt between her fingers, as 
I have manv times seen it between those of French 
women, and even ladies, of all ages. An English 
girl will have her face clean, to be sure, if there 
be soap and water within her reach ; but, get a 
glance, just a glance, at her poll, if you have any 
doubt upon the subject ; and, if you find there, 
or behind the ears, what the Yorkshire people call 
grime, the sooner you cease your visits the better. 
I hope, now, that no young women will be offend- 
ed at this, and think me too severe on her sex. I 
am only saying, I am only telling the women, that 



cobbett's advice [Letter 

which all men think; and, it is a decided ad- 
vantage to them to be fully informed of our 
thoughts on the subject. If any one, who shall 
read this, find, upon self-examination, that she is 
defective in this respect, there is plenty of time 
for correcting the defect. 

113. In the dress you can, amongst rich peo- 
ple, find little whereon to form a judgment as to 
cleanliness, because they have not only the dress 
prepared for them, but put upon them into the 
bargain. But, in the middle rank of life, the dress 
is a good criterion in two respects : first, as to its 
colour ; for, if the white be a sort of yelloiv^ 
cleanly hands would have been at work to prevent 
that. A white-yellow cravat, or shirt, on a man, 
speaks, at once, the character of his wife ; and, be 
you assured, that she will not take with youi dress 
pains which she has never taken with her own. 
Then, the manner of putting on the dress is no bad 
foundation for judging. If it be careless, slovenly, 
if it do not fit properly. No matter for its mean 
quality : mean as it may be, it may be neatly and 
trimly put on ; and, if it be not, take care of your- 
self ; for, as you will soon find to your cost, a 
sloven in one thing is a sloven in all things. The 
country-people judge greatly from the state of the 
covering of the ancles and, if that^ be not clean 
and tight, they conclude, that all out of sight is 
not what it ought to be. Look at the shoes! If 
they be trodden on one side, loose on the foot, 



III.] TO A LOVER. 

or run down at the heel, it Is a very bad sign ; and, 
as to slip-shod, though at coming down in the 
morning and even before daylight, make up your 
mind to a rope, rather than to live with a slip- 
shod wife. 

114. Oh ! how much do women lose by inat- 
tention to these matters ! Men, in general, say 
nothing about it to their wives ; but they think 
about it; they envy their luckier neighbours; and 
in numerous cases, consequences the most serious 
arise from this apparently trifling cause. Beauty 
is valuable; it is one of the ties, and a strong tie 
too ; that, however, cannot last to old age ; but, 
the charm of cleanliness never ends but with life 
itself. I dismiss this part of my subject with a 
quotation from my "Year's Residence in 
America," containing words- which I venture to 
recommend to every young woman to engrave on 
her heart : " The sweetest flowers, when they be- 
& come putrid, stink the most; and a nasty woman 
" is the nastiest thing in nature/' 

115. Knowledge of domestic Affairs. 
Without more or less of this knowledge, a lady, 
even the wife of a peer, is but a poorish thing. 
It was the fashion, in former times, for ladies to 
understand a great deal about these affairs, and 
it would be very hard to make me believe that this 
did not tend to promote the interests and honour of 
their husbands. The affairs of a great family 
never can be well managed, if left ivholly to hire- 



cobbett's advice [Letter 

lings ; and there are many parts of these affairs 
in which it would be unseemly for the husband to 
meddle. Surely, no lady can.be too high in rank 
to make it proper for her to be well acquainted 
with the characters and general demeanour of all 
the female servants. To receive and give them 
characters is too much to be left to a servant, 
however good, and of service however long. Much 
of the ease and happiness of the great and rich 
must depend on the character of those by whom 
they are served : they live under the same roof 
with them ; they are frequently the children of 
their tenants, or poorer neighbours ; the conduct 
of their whole lives must be influenced by the 
examples and precepts which they here imbibe ; 
and when ladies consider how much more weight 
there must be in one word from them than in ten 
thousand words from a person who, call her what 
you like, is still a fellow ^-servant, it does ap- 
pear strange that they should forego the perform- 
ance of this at once important and pleasing part 
of their duty. It was from the mansions of noble- 
men and gentlemen, and not from boarding- 
schools, that farmers and tradesmen formerly took 
their wives ; and though these days are gone, with 
little chance of returning, there is still something 
left for ladies to do in checking that torrent of 
immorality which is now crowding the streets with 
prostitutes and cramming the jails with thieves. 
116. I am, however, addressing myself, in this 



III.] TO A LOVER. 

■work, to persons in the middle rank of life ; and 
here a knoivledge of domestic affairs is so neces- 
sary in every wife, that the lover ought to have it 
continually in his eye* Not only a knowledge of 
these affairs ; not only to know how things ought 
be done, but how to to do them; not only to know 
what ingredients ought to be put into a pie or a 
pudding, but to be able to make the pie or the pud- 
ding. Young people, when they come together, 
ought not, unless they have fortunes, or are in a 
great way of business, to think about servants! 
Servants for what! To help them to eat and drink 
and sleep ? When children come, there must be 
some help in a farmer's or tradesman's house ; 
but until then, what call for a servant in a house, 
the master of which has to earn every mouthful 
that is consumed ? 

117. I shall, when I come to address myself 
to the husband, have much more to say upon 
this subject of keeping servants; but, what the 
lover, if he be not quite blind, has to look to, is, 
that his intended wife know how to do the work 
of a house, unless he have fortune sufficient to 
keep her like a lady. "Eating and drinking/' as I 
observe in Cottage Economy, came three times 
every day ; they must come 5 and, however little 
we may, in the days of our health and vigour, care 
about choice food and about cookery, we very soon 
get tired of heavy or burnt bread and of spoiled 
joints of meat : we bear them for a time, or for 



cobbett's advice [Letter 

two, perhaps ; but, about the third time, we lament 
inwardly ; about the fifth time, it must be an ex- 
traordinary honey-moon that will keep us from 
complaining : if the like continue for a month or 
two, we begin to repent ; and then adieu to all 
our anticipated delights. We discover, when it 
is too late, that we have not got a help-mate, but 
a burden; and, the fire of love being damped, the 
unfortunately educated creature, whose parents 
are more to blame than she is, is, unless she re 
solve to learn her duty, doomed to lead a life very 
nearly approaching to that of misery; for, how- 
ever considerate the husband, he never can esteem 
her as he would have done, had she been skilled 
and able in domestic affairs. 

118. The mere manual performance of domes- 
tic labours is not, indeed, absolutely necessary in 
the female head of the family of professional men, 
such as lawyers, doctors, and parsons ; but, even 
here, and also in the case of great merchants and 
of gentlemen living on their fortunes, surely the 
head of the household ought to able to give direc- 
tions as to the purchasing of meat, salting meat, 
making bread, making preserves of all sorts, and 
ought to see the things done, or that they be 
done. She ought to take care that food be well 
cooked, drink properly prepared and kept ; that 
there be always a sufficient supply ; that there 
be good living without waste ; and that, in her 
department, nothing shall be seen inconsistent 



III.] TO A LOVER. 

with the rank, station, and character of her hus- 
band, who, if he have a skilful and industrious 
wife, will, unless he be of a singularly foolish turn, 
gladly leave all these things to her absolute do- 
minion, controlled only by the extent of the 
whole expenditure, of which he must be the best, 
and, indeed, the sole, judge. 

119. But, ill a farmer's or a tradesman's family, 
the manual performance is absolutely necessary, 
whether there be servants or not. No one knows 
how to teach another so well as one who has done, 
and can do, the thing himself. It was said of a 
famous French commander, that, in attacking an 
enemy, he did not say to his men "go on," but 
66 come on f and, whoever have well observed 
the movements of servants, must know what a 
prodigious difference there is in the effect of the 
words, go and come. A very good rule would be, 
to have nothing to eat, iir a farmer's or trades- 
man's house, that the mistress did not know how 
to prepare and to cook ; no pudding, tart, pie or 
cake, that she did not know how to make. Never 
fear the toil to her : exercise is good for health 5 
and without health there is no beauty; a sick 
beauty may excite pity \ but pity is a short-lived 
passion. Besides, what is the labour in such a 
case ? And how many thousands of ladies, who 
loll away the day, would give half their fortunes 
for that sound sleep which the stirring house-wife 
seldom fails to enjoy. 



cobbett's advice [Letter 

1 20. Yet, if a young farmer or tradesman marry 
a girl, who has been brought up to play music, 
to what is called draiv, to sing, to waste paper, 
pen and ink, in writing long and half romantic 
letters, and to see shows, and plays, and read 
novels ; if a young man do marry such an unfortu- 
nate young creature, let him bear the conse- 
quences with temper \ let him b^just; and justice 
will teach him to treat her with great indulgence ; 
to endeavour to cause her to learn her business as 
a wife ; to be patient with her ; to reflect that 
he has taken her, being apprised of her inability ; 
to bear in mind, that he was, or seemed to be, 
pleased with her showy and useless acquirements; 
and that, when the gratification of his passion 
has been acomplished, he is unjust and cruel and 
unmanly, if he turn round upon her, and accuse 
her of a want of that knowledge, which he well 
knew that she did not possess. 

121. For my part, I do not know, nor can I 
form an idea of, a more unfortunate being than a 
girl with a mere boarding-school education, and 
without a fortune to enable her to keep a servant, 
when married. Of what use are her accomplish- 
ments? Of what use her music, her drawing, 
and her romantic epistles ? If she be good in 
her nature, the first little faint cry of her firs 
baby drives all the tunes and all the landscape 
and all the Clarissa Harlowes out of her head for 
ever. I once saw a very striking instance of this 



! 



III.] TO A. LOVER. 

sort. It was a climb-over-the-wall match, and I 
gave the bride away, at St. Margaret's Churchy 
Westminster; the pair being as handsome a pair 
as ever I saw in my life. Beauty, however, though 
in double quantity, would not pay the baker 
and butcher; and, after an absence of little 
better than a year, I found the husband in 
prison for debt; but I there found also his 
wife, with her baby, and she, who had never, 
before her marriage, known what it was to get 
water to wash her own hands, and whose talk 
was all about music, and the like^ was now the 
cheerful sustainer of her husband, and the most 
affectionate of mothers. All the music and all 
the draiving, and all the plays and romances, were 
gone to the winds ! The husband and baby had 
fairly supplanted them ; and even this prison- 
scene was a blessing, as it gave her, at this early 
stage, an opportunity of proving her devotion to 
her husband, who, though I have not seen him for 
about fifteen years, he being in a part of America 
which I could not reach when last there, has, I 
am sure, amply repaid her for that devotion. 
They have now a numerous family (not less than 
twelve children, I believe), and she is, I am told, 
a most excellent and able mistress of a respect- 
able house. 

122. But, this is a rare instance : the husband, 
like his countrymen in general, was at once brave, 
humane, gentle, and considerate, and the love 

H 



cobbett's advice [Letter 

was so sincere and ardent, on both sides, that it 
made losses and sufferings appear as nothing. 
When I, in a sort of half-whisper, asked Mrs. 
Dickens where her piano was, she smiled, and 
turned her face towards her baby, that was sitting 
on her knee; as much as to say, ^This little fel- 
low has beaten the piano;'' and, if what I am 
now writing should ever have the honour to be 
read by her, let it be the bearer of a renewed 
expression of my admiration of her conduct, and 
of that regard for her kind and sensible husband, 
which time and distance have not in the least 
diminished, and which will be an inmate of my 
heart until it shall cease to beat. 

123. The like of this is, however, not to be 
expected : no man ought to think that he has 
even a chance of it.: besides, the husband was, in 
this case, a man of learning and of great natural 
ability : he has not had to get his bread by farm- 
ing or trade ; and, in all probability, his wife has had 
the leisure to practise those acquirements which 
she possessed at the time of her marriage. But, 
can this be the case with the farmer or the trades- 
man's wife ? She has to help to earn a provision 
for her children ; or, at the least, to help to earn 
a store for sickness or old age. She, therefore, 
ought to be qualified to begin, at once, to assist her 
husband in his earnings : the way, in which she 
can most efficiently assist, is by taking care of his 
property ; by expending his money to the great- 



III.] TO A LOVER, 

est advantage 5 by wasting nothing ; by making 
the table sufficiently abundant with the least ex- 
pense. And how is she to do these things, un- 
less she have been brought up to understand do- 
mestic affairs ? How is she to do these things, 
if she have b^en taught to think these matters 
beneath her study? How is any man to expect 
her to do these things, if she have been so bred 
up as to make her habitually look upon them as 
worthy the attention of none but low and igno- 
rant women ? 

124. Ignorant, indeed ! Ignorance consists in 
a want of knowledge of those things which your 
calling or state of life naturally supposes you to 
understand. A ploughman is not an ignorant 
man because he does not know how to read : if 
he knows how to plough, he is not to be called an 
ignorant man 5 but, a wife may be justly called 
an ignorant woman, if she does not know how to 
provide a dinner for her husband. It is cold 
comfort for a hungry man, to tell him how delight- 
fully his wife plays and sings : lovers may live on 
very aeriel diet \ but husbands stand in need of 
the solids \ and young women may take my word 
for it, that a constantly clean board, well cooked 
victuals, a house in order, and a cheerful fire, will 
do more in preserving a husband's heart, than all 
the "accomplishments /' taught in all the "esta- 
blishments" in the world. 

125. Good Temper. This is a very difficult 

h 2 



cobbett's advice [Letter 

thing to ascertain beforehand. Smiles are so 
cheap; they are so easily put on for the occasion ; 
and; besides, the frowns are, according to the 
lover's whim, interpreted into the contrary. By 
"good temper" I do not mean easy temper, a se- 
renity which nothing disturbs, for that is a mark 
of laziness. Sulkiness, if you be not too blind to 
perceive it, is a temper to be avoided by all means. 
A sulky man is bad enough; what, then, must 
be a sulky woman, and that woman a ivife; a 
constant inmate, a companion day and night ! 
Only think of the delight of sitting at the same 
table, and sleeping in the same bed, for a week, 
and not exchange a word all the while ! Very 
bacl to be scolding for such a length of time ; 
but this is far better than the sulks. If you have 
your eyes, and look sharp, you will discover symp- 
toms of this, if it unhappily exist. She will, 
at some time or other, show it towards some one 
or other of the family; or, perhaps, towards 
yourself; and you may be quite sure that, in this 
respect, marriage will not mend her. Sulkiness 
arises from capricious displeasure, displeasure not 
founded in reason. The party takes offence un- 
justifiably; is unable to frame a complaint, and 
therefore expresses displeasure by silence. The 
remedy for sulkiness is, to suffer it to take its full 
siving; but it is better not to have the disease in 
your house; and to be married to it is little 
short of madness. 



HI.] TO A LOVER. 

126. Querulousness is a great fault. No man, 
and, especially, no woman, likes to hear eternal 
plaintiveness. That she complain, and roundly 
complain, of your want of punctuality, of your 
coolness, of your neglect, of your liking the com- 
pany of others : these are all very well, more 
especially as they are frequently but too just. But, 
an everlasting complaining, without rhyme or rea- 
son, is a bad sign. It shows want of patience, 
and, indeed, want of sense. But, the contrary of 
this, a cold indifference, is still worse. ei When 
" will you come again? You can never find time 
" to come here. You like any company better 
"than mine." These, when groundless, are very 
teasing, and demonstrate a disposition too full of 
anxiousnessj but, from a girl who always receives 
you with the same civil smile, lets you, at your own 
good pleasure, depart with the same ; and who, 
when you take her by the hand, holds her cold 
lingers as straight as sticks, I say (or should if I 
were young), God, in his mercy, preserve me ! 

127. pertinacity is a very bad thing in any 
body, and especially in a young woman ; and, it 
is sure to increase in force with the age of the 
party. To have the last word is a poor triumph ; 
but with some people it is a species of disease of 
the mind. In a wife it must be extremely trouble- 
some 5 and, if you find an ounce of it in the 
maid, it will become a pound in the wife. An 
eternal disputer is a most disagreeable compan- 



cobbett's advice [Letter 

ion; and where young women thrust their say 
into conversations carried on by older persons, 
give their opinions in a positive manner, and 
court a contest of the tongue, those must be very 
bold men who will encounter them as wives. 

12S. Still, of all the faults as to temper, your 
melancholy ladies have the worst, unless you have 
the same mental disease. Most wives are, at 
times, misery -makers ; but these carry it on as a 
regular trade. They are always unhappy about 
somethmg, either past, present, or to come. Both 
arms full of children is a pretty efficient remedy 
in most cases ; but, if the ingredients be want- 
ing, a little want, a little real trouble, a little 
genuine affliction must, if you would effect a cure, 
be resorted to. But this is very painful to a 
man of any feeling ; and, therefore, the best way 
is to avoid a connexion which is to give you a 
life of wailing and sighs. 

129. Beauty. Though I have reserved this 
to the last of the things to be desired in a wife, 
I by no means think it the last in point of im- 
portance. The less favoured part of the sex say, 
that " beauty is but skin-deep ; " and this is very 
true ; but, it is very agreeable, though, for all 
that. Pictures are only paint-deep, or pencil 
deep; but we admire them, nevertheless. " Hand- 
some is that handsome does," used to say to me 
an old man, who had marked me out for his not 
over handsome daughter, " Please your eye and 



III.] TO A LOVER. 

plague your heart " is an adage that want of 
beauty invented, I dare say, more than a thousand 
years ago. These adages would say, if they had 
but the courage, that beauty is inconsistent with 
chastity, with sobriety of conduct, and with all 
the female virtues. The argument is, that beauty 
exposes the possessor to greater temptation than 
women not beautiful are exposed to ; and that, 
therefore, their fall is more probable. Let us 
see a little how this matter stands. 

130. It is certainly true, that pretty girls will 
have more, and more ardent, admirers than ugly 
ones ; but, as to the temptation when in their 
unmarried state, there are few so very ugly as 
to be exposed to no temptation at all ; and, 
which is the most likely to resist ; she who has a 
choice of lovers, or she who if she let the occa- 
sion slip may never have it again ? Which of 
the two is most likely to set a high value upon 
her reputation, she whom all beholders ad- 
mire, or she who is admired, at best, by mere 
chance ? And as to women in the married state, 
this argument assumes, that, when they fall, it is 
from their own vicious disposition ; when the 
fact is, that, if you search the annals of conjugal 
infidelity, you will find, that, nine times out of 
ten, the fault is in the husband. It is his neglect, 
his flagrant disregard, his frosty indifference, his 
foul example ; it is to these that, nine times out 
of ten, he owes the infidelity of his wife ; and, if 



cobbett's advice [Letter 

I were to say ninety-nine times out of a hundred, 
the facts, if verified, would, I am certain, bear 
me out. And whence this neglect, this disre- 
gard, this frosty indifference ; whence this foul 
example ? Because it is easy, in so mafty cases, 
to find some woman more beautiful than the 
wife. This is no justification for the husband to 
plead; for he has, with his eyes open, made a 
solemn contract : if he have not beauty enough 
to please him, he should have sought it in some 
other woman : if, as is frequently the case, he 
have preferred rank or money to beauty, he 
is an unprincipled man, if he do any thing to 
make her unhappy who has brought him the 
rank or the money. At any rate, as conjugal 
infidelity is, in so many cases ; as it is generally 
caused by the want of affection and due attention 
in the husband, it follows, of course, that it must 
more frequently happen in the case of ugly than 
in that of handsome women. 

131. In point of dress, nothing need be said 
to convince any reasonable man, that beautiful 
women will be less expensive in this respect than 
women of a contrary description. Experience 
teaches us, that ugly women are always the most 
studious about their dress ; and, if we had never 
observed upon the subject, reason would tell us, 
that it must be so. Few women are hand- 
some without knowing it; and if they know 
that their features naturally attract admiration, 



III.] TO A LOVER. 

will they desire to draw it off, and to fix it on 
lace and silks and jewels ? 

132. As to manners and temper there are cer- 
tainly some handsome women who are conceited 
and arrogant ; but, as they have all the best rea- 
sons in the world for being pleased with them- 
selves, they afford you the best chance of general 
good humour ; and this good humour is a very 
valuable commodity in the married state. Some 
that are called handsome, and that are such at 
the first glance, are dull ? inanimate things, that 
might as w r ell have been made of wax, or of 
wood. But, the truth is, that this is not beauty, 
for this is not to be found only in the form of the- 
features, but in the movements of them also. 
Besides, here nature is very impartial ; for she 
gives animation promiscuously to the handsome 
as well as to the ugly ; and the want of this in 
the former is surely as bearable as in the latter. 

133. But, the great use of female beauty, the 
great practical advantage of it is, that it naturally 
and unavoidably tends to keep the husband in 
good humour with himself, to make him, to use the 
dealer's phrase, pleased with his bargain. When 
old age approaches, and the parties have become 
endeared to each other by a long series of joint 
cares and interests, and when children have come 
and bound them together by the strongest ties 
that nature has in store ; at this age the features 
and the person are of less consequence ; but, in 

i2 



cobbett's advice [Letter 

the young days of matrimony, when the roving 
eye of the bachelor is scarcely become steady in 
the head of the husband, it is dangerous for him 
to see, every time he stirs out, a face more capti- 
vating than that of the person to whom he is bound 
for life. Beauty is, in some degree, a matter of 
taste : what one man admires, another does not ; 
and it is fortunate for us that it is thus. But 
still there are certain things that all men admire; 
and a husband is always pleased when he per- 
ceives that a portion, at least, of these things are 
in his own possession : he takes this possession as 
a compliment to himself: there must, he will think 
the world will believe, have been some merit in 
Mm, some charm, seen or unseen, to have caused 
him to be blessed with the acquisition. 

134. And then there ariseso many things, sick- 
ness, misfortune in business, losses, many many 
things, wholly unexpected ; and, there are so 
manv circumstances, perfectly nameless, to com- 
municate to the new-married man the fact, that 
it is not a real angel of whom he has got the 
possession ; there are so many things of this sort, 
iso many and such powerful dampers of the pas- 
sions, and so many incentives to cool reflection / 
that it requires something, and a good deal too, 
to keep the husband in countenance in this his 
altered and enlightened state. The passion of 
women does not cool so soon : the lamp of their 
love burns more steadily, and even brightens as 



III.] TO A LOVER. 

it burns : and, there is, the young man may be 
assured, a vast difference in the effect of the , 
fondness of a pretty woman and that of one of a 
different description ; and, let reason and philo * 
sophy say what they will, a man will come down 
stairs of a morning better pleased after seeing the 
former, than he would after seeing the latter, in 
her night-cap. 

135. To be sure, when a man has, from what- 
ever inducement, once married a woman, he is 
unjust and cruel if he even slight her on account 
of her want of beauty, and, if he treat her harshly, 
on this account, he is a brute. But, it requires a 
greater degree of reflection and consideration 
than falls to the lot of men in general to make 
them act with justice in such a case ; and, there- 
fore, the best way is to guard, if you can, against 
the temptation to commit such injustice, which is 
to be done in no other way, than by not marrying 
any one that you do not think handsome. 

136. I must not conclude this address to the 
Lover without something on the subject of 
seduction and inconstancy. In, perhaps, nineteen 
cases put of twenty, there is, in the unfortunate 
cases of Illicit gratification, no seduction at all, 
the passion, the absence of virtue, and the crime, 
being all mutual. But, there are other cases of 
a very different description ; and where a man 
goes coolly and, deliberately to work, first to gain 
and rivet the affections of a young girl, then to 



cobbett's advice [Letter 

to take advantage of those affections to accom- 
plish that which he knows must be her ruin, and 
plunge her into misery for life ;, when a man does 
this merely for the sake of a momentary gratifi- 
cation, he must be either a selfish and unfeeling 
"brute, unworthy of the name of man, or he must 
have a heart little inferior, in point of obduracy, to 
that of the murderer., Let young women, how- 
ever, be aware ; let them be well aware,--that few, 
indeed, are the cases in which this apology can 
possibly avail them. Their character is not solely 
theirs, but belongs, in part, to their family and 
kindred. They may, in the case contemplated, 
be objects of compassion with the world 5 but 
what contrition, what repentance, what remorse, 
what that even the tenderest benevolence can 
suggest, is to heal the wounded hearts of hum- 
bled, disgraced, but still affectionate, parents, bre- 
thren and sisters ? 

137. As to constancy in Lovers, though I do 
not approve of the saying, * At lovers' lies Jove 
laughs;" yet, when people are young, one object 
may supplant another in their affections, not only 
without criminality in the party experiencing the 
change, bnt without blame ; and it is honest, and 
even humane, to act upon the change ; because 
it would be both foolish and cruel to marry one 
girl while you liked another better : and the same 
holds good with regard to the other sex. Even 
when marriage has been promised, and that, too, 



ITL] TO A LOVER. 

in the most solemn manner, it is better for both 
parties to break off, than to be coupled together 
with the reluctant assent of either; and I have 
always thought, that actions for damages, on this 
score, if brought by the girl, show a want of deli- 
cacy as well as of spirit; and, if brought by the 
man, excessive meanness. Some damage may, 
indeed, have been done to the complaining party; 
but no damage equal to what that party would 
have sustained from a marriage, to which the 
other party would have yielded by a sort of com- 
pulsion, producing to almost a certainty what 
Hogarth, in his Marriage a la Mode, most aptly 
typifies by two curs, of different sexes, fastened 
together by what sportsmen call couples, pulling 
different ways, and snarling and barking and 
foaming like furies. 

138. But when promises have been made to a 
young woman ; when they have been relied on 
for any considerable time ; when it is manifest 
that her peace and happiness, and, perhaps, her 
life, depend upon their fulfilment ; when things 
have been carried to this length, the change in 
the Lover ought to be announced in the manner 
most likely to make the disappointment as 
supportable as the case will admit of; for, 
though it is better to break the promise than to 
marry one while you like another better ; though 
it is better for both parties, you have no right to 
break the heart of her who has, and that, too, 



cobbett's advice [Letter 

with your accordance, and, indeed, at your insti- 
gation, or, at least, by your encouragement, 
confided it to your fidelity. You cannot help 
your change of affections ; but you can help 
making the transfer in such a way as to cause 
the destruction, or even probable destruction, 
nay, if it were but the deep misery, of her, to gain 
whose heart you had pledged your own. You 
ought to proceed by slow degrees ; you ought to 
call time to your aid in executing the painful 
task ; you ought scrupulously to avoid every 
thing calculated to aggravate the sufferings of 
the disconsolate party. 

139. A striking, a monstrous, instance of 
conduct the contrary of this has recently been 
placed upon the melancholy records of the 
Coroner of Middlesex ; which have informed an 
indignant public, that a young man, having first 
secured the affections of a virtuous young woman,, 
next promised her marriage, then caused the 
banns to be published, and then, on the very day 
appointed for the performance of the ceremony, 
married another woman, in the same church; 
and this, too, without, as he avowed, any provo- 
cation, and without the smallest intimation or 
hint of his intention to the disappointed party, 
who, unable to support existence under a blow so 
cruel, put an end to that existence by the most 
deadly and the swiftest poison. If any thing 
could wipe from our country the stain of having. 



III.] TO A LOVER. 

given birth to a monster so barbarous as this, it 
would be the abhorrence- of . him which the jury 
expressed ; and which^ from every tongue, he 
ought to hear to the last moment of his life. 

140. Nor has a man any right to sport with 
the affections of a young woman, though he stop 
short of positive promises. Vanity is generally 
the tempter in this case ; a desire to be regarded 
as being admired by the women : a very despica- 
ble species of vanity, but frequently greatly mis- 
chievous, notwithstanding. You do not, indeed, 
actually, in so many words, promise to marry ; 
but the general tenor of your language and 
deportment has that meaning ; you know, that 
your meaning is so understogd ; and if you have 
not such meaning ; if you be fixed by some 
previous engagement with, or greater liking 
for, another ; if you know you are here sowing 
the seeds of disappointment j and if you, keeping 
your previous engagement or greater liking a 
secret, persevere, in spite of the admonitions of 
conscience, you are guilty of deliberate deception, 
injustice and cruelty : you, make to God an un- 
grateful return for those endowments which have 
enabled you to achieve this inglorious and un- 
manly triumph ; and if, as is frequently the case, 
vou glory in such triumph, you may have person, 
riches, talents to excite envy \ but every just and 
humane man will abhor your heart. 

141. There 2lre, however, certain cases in which 
vou deceive, or nearly deceive, yourself $ cases in 

I 5 



cobbett's ahvice [Letter 

which you are, by degrees and by circumstances, 
deluded into something very nearly resembling 
sincere love for a second object, the first still, 
however, maintaining her ground in your heart $ 
cases in which you are not actuated by vanity, in 
which you are not guilty of injustice and cruelty ; 
but cases in which you, nevertheless, do 
zvrong : and as I once did a wrong of this sort 
myself, I will here give a history of it, as a warn- 
ing to every young man who shall read this little 
book ; that being the best and, indeed, the only 
atonement, that I c&n make, or ever could 
have made, for this only serious sin that I ever 
committed against the female sex. 

142. The Province of New Brunswick, in North 
America, in which I passed my years from the 
age of eighteen to that of twenty- six, consists, in 
general, of heaps of rocks, in the interstices of 
which grow the pine, the spruce, and various sorts 
of fir tr^es, or, where the woods have been burnt 
down, the bushes of the raspberry or those of the 
huckleberry. The province is cut asunder length- 
wise, by a great river, called the St. John, about 
two hundred miles in length, and, at half way 
from the mouth, full a mile wide. Into this main 
jiver run innumerable smaller rivers, there called 
creeks. On the sides of these creeks the land 
5s, in places, clear of rocks ; it is, in these places, 
generally good and productive \ the trees that 
grow here are the birch, the maple, and others of 
the deciduous class 5 natural meadows here and 



III.] TO A LOVER. 

there present themselves; and some of these 
spots far surpass in rural beauty any other that 
my eyes ever beheld ; the creeks, abounding to- 
wards their sources in water-falls of endless 
variety, as well in form as in magnitude, and al- 
ways teeming with fish, while water-fowl enliven 
their surface, and while wild-pigeons, of the gayest 
plumage, flutter, in thousands upon thousands, 
amongst the branches of the beautiful trees, which, 
sometimes, for miles together, form an arch over 
the creeks. 

143. I, in one of my rambles in the woods, in 
which I took great delight, came to a spot at a 
very short distance from the source of one of these 
creeks. Here was every thing to delight the eye, 
and especially of one like me, who seem to have 
been born to love rural life, and trees and plants 
of all sorts. Here were about two hundred acres 
of natural meadow, interspersed with patches of 
maple-trees in various forms and of various extent; 
the creek (there about thirty miles from its point 
of joining the St. John) ran down the middle of 
the spot, which formed a sort of dish, the high 
and rocky hills rising all round it, except at the 
outlet of the creek, and these hills crowned with 
lofty pines : in the hills were the sources of the 
creek, the waters of which came down in cas- 
cades, for any one of which many a nobleman in 
England would, if he could transfer it, give a 
good slice of his fertile estate j and in the creek, 



, cobbett's advice [Letter 

at the foot of the cascades, there were, in the 
season, salmon the finest in the world, and so 
abundant, and so easily taken, as to be used for 
manuring the land. 

144. If nature, in her very best humour, had 
made a spot for the express purpose of captivating 
me, she could not have exceeded the efforts which 
she had here made. But I found something here 
besides these rude works of nature ; 1 found some- 
thing in the fashioning of which man had had 
something to do. I found a large and well-built 
log dwelling house, standing (in the month of 
September) on the edg£ of a very good field of 
Indian Corn, by the side of which there was a 
piece of buck-wheat just then mowed. I found 
a homestead, and some very pretty cows. I 
found all the things by which an easy and happy 
farmer is surrounded: and I found still something 
besides all these; something that was destined to 
give me a great deal of pleasure and also a great 
deal of pain, both in their extreme degree; and 
both of which, in spite of the lapse of forty years, 
now make an attempt to rush back into my heart, 

145. Partly from misinformation, and partly 
from miscalculation, I' had lost my way ; and, 
quite alone, but armed with my sword and a brace 
of pistols, to defend myself against the bears, I 
arrived at the log- house in the middle of a moon- 
light night, the hoar frost covering the trees and 
the grass. A stout and clamorous dog, kept off 



III.] TO A LOVER. 

by the gleaming of my sword, waked the master 
of the house, who got up, received me with great 
hospitality, got me something to eat, and put me 
into a feather-bed, a thing that I had been a 
stranger to for some years. I, being very tired, 
had tried to pass the night in the woods, between 
the trunks of two large trees, which had fallen 
side by side, and within a yard of each other. I 
had made a nest for myself of dry fern, and had 
made a covering by laying boughs of spruce across 
the trunks of the trees. But unable to sleep on 
account of the cold ; becoming sick from the great 
quantity of water that I had drank during the 
heat of the day, and being, moreover, alarmed at 
the noise of the bears, and lest one of them should 
find me in a defenceless state, I had roused my- 
self up, and had crept along as well as I could. 
So that no hero of eastern romance ever experi- 
enced a more enchanting change. 

146. I had got into the house of one of those 
Yankee Loyalists, who, at the close of the re- 
volutionary war (which, until it had succeeded, 
was called a rebellion) had accepted of grants of 
land in the King's Province of New Brunswick ; 
and who, to the great honour of England, had 
been furnished with all the means of making new 
and comfortable settlements. I was suffered to 
sleep till breakfast time, when I found a table, 
the like of which I have since seen so many in 
the United States, loaded with good things. The 



cqbbett's advice [Letter 

master and the mistress of the house^ aged about 
fifty, were like what an English farmer and his 
wife were half a century ago. There were two 
sons, tall and stout, who appeared to have come 
in from work, and the youngest of whom was 
about my age, then twenty-three. But there 
was another member of the family, aged nineteen, 
who (dressed according to the neat and simple 
fashion of New England, whence she had come 
with her parents five or six years before) had her 
long light-brown hair twisted nicely up, and 
fastened on the top of her head, in which head 
were a pair of lively blue eyes, associated with 
features of which that softness and that sweet- 
ness, so characteristic of American girls, were the 
predominant expressions, the whole being set off 
by a complexion indicative of glowing health, 
and forming, figure, movements, and all taken 
together, an assemblage of beauties, far surpassing 
any that I had ever seen but once in my life* 
That once was, too, two years agone ; and, in 
such a case and at such an age, two years, two 
whole years, is a long, long while ! It was a space 
as long as the eleventh part of my then life ! 
Here was the present against the absent : here 
was the power of the eyes pitted against that of 
the memory : here were all the senses up in arms 
to subdue the influence of the thoughts : here was 
vanity, here was passion, here was the spot of all 
spots in the world, and here were also the life, and 



III.] TO A LOVER, 

the manners and the habits and the pursuits that 
I delighted in : here was every thing that imagi- 
nation can conceive, united in a conspiracy against 
•the poor little brunette in England ! What, then, 
did I fall in love at once with this bouquet of 
lilies and roses ? Oh ! by no means. I was, how- 
ever, so enchanted with the place; I so much 
enjoyed its tranquillity, the shade of the maple 
trees, the business of the farm, the sports of the 
water and of the woods, that I stayed at it to the 
last possible minute, promising, at my departure, 
to come again as often as I possibly could ; a 
promise which I most punctually fulfilled. 

14J. Winter is the great season for jaunting 
and dancing (called frolicking) in America. In 
this Province the river and the creeks were the 
only roads from settlement to settlement. In 
summer we travelled in canoes; in winter in 
sleighs on the ice or snow. During more than 
two years I spent all the time I could with my 
Yankee friends : they were all fond of me : I 
talked to them about country affairs, my evident 
delight in which they took as a compliment to 
themselves : the father and mother treated me as 
one of their children \ the sons as a brother ; 
and the daughter, who was as modest and as full 
of sensibility as she was beautiful, in a way to 
which a chap much less sanguine than I was 
would have given the tenderest interpretation 5 
which treatment I, especially in the last-men- 
tioned case, most cordially repaid. 



cobbett's advice [Letter 

148. It is when you meet in company with 
others of your own age that you are, in love mat- 
ters, put, most frequently/ to the test, and ex- 
posed to detection. The next door neighbour 
might, in that country, be ten miles off. We 
used to have a frolic, sometimes at one house and 
sometimes at another. Here, where female eyes 
are very much on the alert, no secret can long 
be kept ; and very soon father, mother, brothers 
and the whole neighbourhood looked upon the 
thing as certain, not excepting herself, to whom 
I, however, had never once even talked of mar-^ 
riage, and had never -even told her that I loved 
her. But I had a thousand times done these by 
implication, taking into view the interpretation 
that she would naturally put upon my looks, ap- 
pellations and acts ; and it was of this, that I had 
to accuse myself. Yet I was not a deceiver; 
for my affection for her was very great : I spent 
no really pleasant hours but with her : I was un- 
easy if she showed the slightest regard for any 
other young man : I was unhappy if the smallest 
matter affected her health or spirits : I quitted 
her in dejection, and returned to her with eager 
delight: many a time, when I could get leave 
but for a day, I paddled in a canoe two whole 
succeeding nights, in order to pass that day with 
her. If this was not love, it was first cousin to 
it ; for as to any criminal intention I no more 
thought of it, in her case, than if she had been 
my sister. Many tim£s I put to myself the ques- 



III. J TO A LOVER. 

tions : "What am I at? Is not this wrong: ? 
Why do I go ?" But stili I went. 

149. Then, further in my excuse, my prior 
engagement, though carefully left unalluded to 
by both parties, was, in that thin population, and 
owing to the singular circumstances of it, and to 
the great talk that there always was about me, 

perfectly well known to her and all her family. 
It was matter of so much notoriety and conver- 
sation in the Province, that General Carleton 
(brother of the late Lord Dorchester), who was 
the Governor when I was there, when he, about 
fifteen years afterwards, did me the honour, on 
his return to England, to come and see me at my 
house in Duke Street, Westminster, asked, be- 
fore he went away, to see my wife, of whom he 
d heard so much before her marriage. So that 
here was no deception on my part : but still I 
ought not to have suffered even the most distant 
hope to be entertained by a person so innocent, 
so amiable, for whom I had so much affection, 
and to whose heart I had no right to give a sin- 
gle twinge. I ought, from the very first, to have 
prevented the possibility of her ever feeling pain 
on my account. I was young, to be sure ; but I 
was old enough to know what was my duty in 
this case, and I ought, dismissing my own feel- 
ings, to have had the resolution to perform it. 

150. The last parting came; and now came 
my just punishment ! The time was known to 



cobbett's advice [Letter 

every body, and was irrevocably fixed ; for I had 
to move with a regiment, and the embarkation of 
a regiment is an epoch in a thinly settled pro- 
vince. To describe this parting would be too 
painful even at this distant day, and with this 
frost of age upon my head. The kind and vir- 
tuous father came forty miles to see me just as I 
was going on board in the river* His looks and 
words I have never forgotten. As the vessel de- 
scended, she passed the mouth of that creek 
which I had so often entered with delight ; and 
though England, and aU that England contained, 
were before me, I lost sight of this creek with an 
aching heart. 

151. On what trifles turn the great events in 
the life of man ! If I had received a cool letter 
from my intended wife ; if I had only heard a 
rumour of any thing from which fickleness in her 
might have been inferred ; if I had found in her 
any, even the smallest, abatement of affection $ 
if she had but let go any one of the hundred 
strings by which she held my heart : if any of 
these, never would the world have heard of me. 
Young as I was ; able as I was as a soldier 3 
proud as I was of the admiration and commen- 
dations of which I was the object 3 fond as I 
was, too, of the command, which, at so early 
an age, my rare conduct and great natural ta- 
lents had given me ; sanguine as was my mind, 
and brilliant as were my prospects : yet I had 



III.] TO A LOVER. 

seen so much of the meannesses, the unjust par- 
tialities, the insolent pomposity, the disgusting 
dissipations of that way of life, that I was weary 
of it : I longed, exchanging my fine laced coat 
for the Yankee farmer's home-spun, to be where 
I should never behold the supple crouch of ser- 
vility, and never hear the hectoring voice of au- 
thority, again ; and, on the lonely banks of this 
branch-covered creek, which contained (she out 
of the question) every thing congenial to my 
taste and dear to my heart, I, unapplauded, un- 
feared, unenvied and uncalumniated, should have 
lived and died. ■ 



LETTER IV. 

TO A HUSBAND. 



152. It is in this capacity that your conduct 
will have the greatest effect on your happiness ; 
and a great deal will depend on the manner in 
which you begin. I am to suppose that you have 
made a. good choice; bat a good young woman 
may be made, by a weak, a harsh, a neglectful, 
an extravagant, or a profligate husband, a really 
bad wife and mother. All in a wife, beyond her 
own natural disposition and education is, nine 
times out often, the, work of her husband. 

153. The first thing of all, be the rank in life 
what it may, is to convince her of the necessity 
of moderation in expense; and to make her 
clearly see the justice of beginning to act upon 
the presumption, that there are children coming, 
that they are to be provided for, and that she is to 
assist in the making of that provision. Legally 
speaking, we have a right to do what we please 
with our own property, which, however, is not 
our own, unless it exceed our debts. And, mo- 
rally speaking, w T e, at the moment of our mar- 
riage, contract a debt with the naturally to be 
expected fruit of it ; and, therefore (reserving 



TO A HUSBAND. 

further remarks upon this subject till I come to 
speak of the education of children), the scale of 
expense should, at the beginning, be as low as 
that of which a due attention to rank in life will 
admit. 

154. The great danger of all is, beginning 
with servants, or a servant. Where there are 
riches, or where the business is so great as to de- 
mand help in the carrying on of the affairs of a 
house, one or more female servants must be kept; 
but, where the work of a house can be done by 
one pair of hands, why should there be two ; es- 
pecially as you cannot have the hands without 
having the mouth, and, which is frequently not 
less costly, inconvenient and injurious, the 
tongue ? When children come, there must, at 
times, bessome foreign aid ; but, until then, what 
need can the wife of a young tradesman, or even 
farmer (unless the family be great) have of a ser- 
vant ? The wife is young, and why is she not to 
work as well as the husband ? What justice is 
there in wanting you to keep two women instead 
of one ? You have not married them both in 
form ; but, if they be inseparable, you have mar- 
ried them in substance ; and if you are free from 
the crime of bigamy, you have the far most bur- 
thensome part of its consequences. 

155. I am well aware of the unpopularity of 
this doctrine; well aware of its hostility to pre- 
valent habits; well aware that almost every 



cobbett's advice [Letter 

tradesman and every farmer, though with scarcely 
a shilling to call his own ; and that every clerk, 
and every such person, begins by keeping a 
servant, and that the latter is generally provided 
before the wife be installed : I am well aware of 
all this ; but knowing, from long and attentive 
observation, that it is the great bane of the mar- 
riage life ; the great cause of that penury, and of 
those numerous and tormenting embarrassments, 
amidst which conjugal felicity can seldom long 
be kept alive, I give the advice, and state the 
reasons on which it was founded. 

156, In London, or near it, a maid servant 
cannot be kept at an expense so low as that of 
thirty pounds a year ; for, besides her wages, 
board and lodging, there must be a. fire solely for 
her \ or she must sit with the husband and wife, 
hear every word that passes between them, and 
between them and their friends ; w T hich will, of 
course, greatly add to the pleasures of their fire- 
side ! To keep her tongue still would be impos- 
sible, and, indeed, unreasonable ; and if, as may 
frequently happen, she be prettier than the wife, 
she will know how to give the suitable interpre- 
tation to the looks which, to a next to a cer- 
tainty, she will occasionally get from him, who, 
as it were in mockery, she calls by the name of 
u mastery This is almost downright bigamy ; 
but this can never do ; and, therefore, she must 
have a fire to herself. Besides the blaze of 



IV.] TO A HUSBAND. 

coals, however, there is another sort of flame that 
she will inevitably covet. She will by no means 
be sparing of the coals ; but, well fed and well 
lodged, as she will be, whatever you may be, she 
will naturally sigh for the fire of love, for which 
she carries in her bosom a match always ready 
prepared. In plain language, you have a man to 
keep, a part, at least, of every week ; and the 
leg of lamb, which might have lasted you and 
your wife for three days, will, by this gentleman's 
sighs, be borne away in one. Shut the door 
against this intruder \ out she goes herself: and, 
if she go empty-handed, she is no true Christian, 
or, at least, will not be looked upon as such by 
the charitable friend at whose house she meets 
the longing soul, dying partly with love and 
partly with hunger. 

157. The cost, altogether, is nearer fifty 
pounds a year than thirty. How many thou- 
sands of tradesmen and clerks, and the like, who 
might have passed through life without a single 
embarrassment, have lived in continual trouble 
and fear, and found a premature grave, from this 
very cause, and this cause alone ! When I, on 
my return from America, in 1800, lived a short 
time in Saint James's Street, following my 
habit of early rising, I used to see the servant 
maids, at almost every house, dispensing charity 
at the expense of their masters, long before they, 
good men, opened their eyes, who thus did deeds 



cobbett's advice [Letter 

of benevolence, not only without boasting of 
them, but without knowing of them. Meat, 
bread, cheese, butter, coals, candles; all came 
with equal freedom from these liberal hands. I 
have observed the same, in my early walks and 
rides, in every part of this great place and its en- 
virons. Where there is one servant it is worse 
than where there are two or more ; for, happily 
for their employers, they do not always agree. 
So that the oppression is most heavy on those 
who are the least able to bear it : and particu- 
larly on clerks, and such like people, whose wives 
seem to think, that, because the husband's work 
is of a genteel description, they ought to live the 
life of ladies. Poor fellows ! their work is not 
hard and rough, to be sure ; but, it is work, and 
work for many hours too^ and painful enough ; 
and as to their income, it scarcely exceeds, on 
an average, the double, at any rate, of that of a 
journeyman carpenter, bricklayer, or tailor. 

158. Besides, the man and wife will live on 
cheaper diet and drink than a servant will live* 
Thousands, who would never have had beer in 
their house, have it for the servant, who will not 
live without it. However frugal your wife, her 
frugality is of little use, if she have one of these 
inmates to provide for. Many a hundred thou- 
sand times has it happened that the butcher and 
the butter-man have been applied to solely be- 
cause there was a servant to satisfy. You can- 



IV.] TO A HUSBAND. 

not, with this clog everlastingly attached to you, 
be frugal, if you would : you can save nothing 
against the days of expense, which are, however, 
pretty sure to come. And why should you bring 
into your house a trouble like this ; an absolute 
annoyance ; a something for your wife to watch, 
to be a constraint upon her, to thwart her in her 
best intentions, to make her uneasy, and to sour 
her temper ? Why should you do this foolish 
thing ? Merely to comply with corrupt fashion 5 
merely from false shame, and false and con- 
temptible pride ? If a young man were, on his 
-marriage, to find any difficulty in setting this 
ruinous fashion at defiance, a very good way 
would be to count down to his wife, at the end 
of every week, the amount of the expense of a 
servant for that week, and request her to deposit 
it in her drawer. In a short time she would find 
the sum so large, that she would be frightened 
at the thoughts of a servant; and would never 
dream of one again, except in case of absolute 
necessity, and then for as short a time as pos- 
sible. 

159. But the wife may not be able to do all 
the work to be done in the house. Not able! 
A young woman not able to cook and wash, and 
mend and make, and clean the house and make 
the bed for one young man and herself, and that 
young man her husband too, who is quite willing 
(if he be worth a straw) to put up with cold din,- 

K 



cobbeiVs advice [Letter 

ner, or with a crust ; to get up and light her fire; 
to do any thing that the mind can suggest to 
spare her labour, and to conduce to her conve- 
nience ! Not able to do this ? Then, if she 
brought no fortune, and he had none, she ought 
not to have been able to marry : and, let me tell 
you, young man, a small fortune would not put 
a servant-keeping wife upon an equality with 
one who required no such inmate. 

160. If, indeed, the work of a house were 
harder, than a young woman could perform with- 
out pain, or great fatigue ; if it had a tendency 
to impair her health or deface her beauty ; then 
you might hesitate : but, it is not too hard, and 
it tends to preserve health, to keep the spirits 
bouyant, and, of course, to preserve beauty. You 
often hear girls, while scrubbing cr washing, 
singing till they are out of breath; but never 
while they are at what they call working at the 
needle. The American wives are most exem- 
plary in this respect. They have none of that false 
pride, which prevents thousands in England from 
doing that which interest, reason, and even their 
own inclination would prompt them to do. They 
work, not from necessity \ not from compulsion 
of any sort ; for their husbands are the most 
indulgent in the whole world. In the towns they 
go to the market, and cheerfully carry home the 
result : in the country, they not only do the work 
in the house, but extend their labours to the 



IV.] TO A HUSBAND. 

garden, plant and weed and hoe, and gather and 
preserve the fruits and the herbs ; and this, too, 
in a climate far from being so favourable to 
labour as that of England ; and they are amply 
repaid for these by those gratifications which 
their excellent economy enables their husbands 
to bestow upon them, and which it is their uni- 
versal habit to do with a liberal hand. 

161. But, did I practise what I am here 
preaching ? Aye, and to the full extent. Till I 
had a second child, no servant ever entered my 
house, though well able to keep one ; and never, 
in my whole life, did I live in a house so clean, 
in such trim order, and never have I eaten or 
drunk, or slept or dressed, in a manner so per- 
fectly to my fancy, as I did then. I had a great 
deal of business to attend to, that took me a 
'great part of the day from home ; but, whenever 
I could spare a minute from business, the child 
was in my arms; I rendered the mother's labour u 
as light as I could; any bit of food satisfied mej 
when watching was necessary, we shared it be- 
tween us; and that famous Grammar for teach- 
ing French people English, which has been for 
thirty years, and still is, the great work of this 
kind, throughout all America and in every nation 
in Europe, w r as written by me, in hours not 
employed in business, and, in great part, during 
my share of the night watchings over a sick, and 
x2 



cobbett's advice [Letter 

then only, child, who, after lingering many 
months, died in my arms. 

162. This was the way that we went on : this 
was the way that we began the married life ; and 
surely, that which we did with pleasure no young 
couple, unendowed with fortune, ought to be 
ashamed to do. But she may be ill ; the time 
may be near at hand, or may have actually 
arrived, when she must encounter that particular 
pain and danger of which you have been the happy 
cause! Oh ! that is quite another matter ! And 
if you now exceed in care, in watchings over her, 
in tender attention to all her wishes, in anxious 
efforts to quiet her fears ; if you exceed in pains 
and expense to procure her relief and secure her 
life ; if you, in any of these, exceed that which 
I wtftild recommend, you must be romantic in- 
deed ! She deserves them all, and more than all, 
ten thousand times told. And now it is that 
you feel the blessing conferred by her economy. 
That heap of money, which might have been 
squandered on, or by, or in consequence of, an 
useless servant, you now have in hand wherewith 
to procure an abundance of that skill and that 
attendance of which she stands in absolute need; 
and she, when restored to you in smiling health, 
has the just pride to reflect, that she may have 
owed her life and your happiness to the effects 
of her industrv. 



i 



IV.] To A HUSBAND. 

163. It is the beginning that is every thing in 
this important case \ and you will have, perhaps, 
much to do to convince her, not that what you 
recommend is advantageous ; not that it is right; 
but to convince her that she can do it without 
sinking below the station that she ought to main- 
tain. She would cheerfully do it ; but there are 
her next-door neighbours, who do not do it, 
though, in all other respects, on a par with her. 
It is not laziness, but pernicious fashion, that 
you will have to combat. But the truth is, that 
there ought to be no combat at all; tins important 
matter ought to be settled and fully agreed on 
beforehand. If she really love you, and have 
common sense, she will not hesitate a moment; 
and if she be deficient in either of these respects ; 
and if you be so mad in love as to be unable to 
exist without her, it is better to cease to exist at 
once, than to become the toiling and embarrassed 
slave of a wasting and pillaging servant. 

164. The next thing to be attended to is, your 
demeanor towards a young wife. As to oldish 
ones, or widows, time and other things have, in 
most cases, blunted their feelings, and rendered 
harsh or stern demeanor in the husband a matter 
not of heart-breaking consequence. But with 
a young and inexperienced one, the case is very 
different ; and you should bear in mind, that the 
first frown that she receives from you is a dagger 
to her heart. Nature has so ordered it, that men 



cobbett's advice [Letter 

shall become less ardent in their passion after 
the wedding day; and that women shall not. 
Their ardour increases rather than the contrary ; 
and they are surprisingly quick-sighted and in- 
quisitive on this score. When the child comes, 
it divides this ardour with the father ; but until 
then you have it all ; and if you have a mind to 
be happy, repay it with all your soul. Let what 
may happen to put you out of humour with 
others, let nothing put you out of humour with 
her. Let your words and looks and manners be 
just what they were before you called her wife. 

165. But now, and throughout your life, show 
your affection for her, and your admiration of 
her, not in nonsensical compliment ; not in pick- 
ing up her handkerchief, or her glove, or in car- 
rying her fan or parasol ; not, if you have the 
means, in hanging trinkets and baubles upon 
her; not in making yourself a fool by winking 
at, and seeming pleased at, her foibles, or follies, 
or faults ; but show them by acts of real goodness 
towards her ; prove by unequivocal deeds the 
high value that you set on her health and life 
and peace of mind ; let your praise of her go to 
the full extent of her deserts, but let it be con- 
sistent with truth and with sense, and such as to 
convince her of your sincerity. He who is the 
flatterer of his wife only prepares her ears for the 
hyperbolical stuff of others. The kindest appel- 
lation that her Christian name affords is the 



IV.] TO A HUSBAND. 

best you can use, especially before faces. An 
everlasting " my dear " is but a sorry compen- 
sation for a want of that sort of love that makes 
the husband cheerfully toil by day, break his rest 
by night, endure all sorts of hardships, if the 
life or health of his wife demand it. Let your 
deeds, and not your words, carry to her heart a 
daily and hourly confirmation of the fact, that you 
value her health and life and happiness beyond 
all other things in the world ; and let this be ma- 
nifest to her, particularly at those times when 
life is always more or less in danger. 

166. I began my young marriage days in and 
near Philadelphia. At one of those times to 
which I have just alluded, in the middle of the 
burning hot month of July, I was greatly afraid 
of fatal consequences to my wife for want of sleep, 
she not having, after the great danger was over, 
had any sleep for more than forty- eight hours. 
All great cities, in hot countries, are, I believe, 
full of dogs ; and they, in the very hot weather, 
keep up, during the night, a horrible barking and 
fighting and howling. Upon the particular occa- 
sion to which I am adverting, they made a noise 
so terrible and so unremitted, that it was next to 
impossible that even a person in full health and 
free from pain should obtain a minute's sleep. I 
was, about nine in the evening, sitting by the 
bed : " I do think," said she; " that I could go 
to sleep noiv, if it were not for the dogs" Down 

L 



cobbett's advice [Letter 

stairs I went, and out I sallied, in my shirt and 
trowsers, and without shoes and stockings ; and, 
going to a heap of stones lying beside the road, 
set to work upon the dogs, going backward and 
forward, and keeping them at two or three hun- 
dred yards' distance from the house. I walked 
thus the whole night, barefooted, lest the noise of 
my shoes might possibly reach her ears; and I 
remember that the bricks of the causeway were, 
even in the night, so hot as to be disagreeable to 
my feet. My exertions produced the desired 
effect : a sleep of several hours was the conse- 
quence ; and, at eight o'clock in the morning, 
off went I to a day's business, which was to end 
at six in the evening, 

167. Women are all patriots of the soil; and 
when her neighbours used to ask my wife whether 
all English husbands were like hers, she boldly 
answered in the affirmative. I had business to 
occupy the whole of my time, Sundays and week- 
days, except sleeping hours ; but I used to make 
time to assist her in the taking care of her baby, 
and in all sorts of things : get up, light her fire, 
boil her tea-kettle, carry her up warm water in 
cold weather, take the child while she dressed 
herself and got the breakfast ready, then break- 
fast, get her in water and wood for the day, then 
dress myself neatly, and sally forth to my business. 
The moment that was over I used to hasten back 
to her again ; and I no more thought of spending 



IV.] TO A HUSBAND. 

a moment away from her, unless business com- 
pelled me, than I thought of quitting the country 
and going to sea. The thunder and lightning 
are tremendous in America, compared with what 
they are in England. My wife was, at one time, 
very much afraid of thunder and lightning; and 
as is the feeling of all such women, and, indeed, all 
men too, she wanted company, and particularly 
her husband, in those times of danger. I knew 
well, of course, that my presence would not di- 
minish the danger ; but, be I at what I might, if 
within reach of home, I used to quit my business 
and hasten to her, the moment I perceived a 
thunder storm approaching. Scores of miles 
have I, first and last, run on this errand, in the 
streets of Philadelphia ! The Frenchmen, who 
were my scholars, used to laugh at me exceed- 
ingly on this account ; and sometimes, when I 
was making an appointment with them, they 
would say, with a smile and a bow, " Sauve la 
tonnere toujours, Monsieur Cobbett" 

168. I never dangled about at the heels of my 
wife ; seldom, very seldom, ever walked out, as it 
is called, with her; I never "went a walking" in 
the whole course of my life ; never went to walk 
without having some object in view other than the 
walk ; and, as I never could walk at a slow pace, 
it would have been hard work for her to keep up 
with me ; so that, in the nearly forty years of our 
married life, we have not walked out together^ 
l2 



cobbett's advice [Letter 

perhaps, twenty times. I hate a dangler y who is 
more like a footman than a husband. It is very 
cheap to be kind in trifles; but that which rivets 
the affections is not to be purchased with money. 
The great thing of all, however, is to prove your 
anxiety at those times of peril to her, and for 
which times you, nevertheless, wish. Upon those 
occasions I was never from home, be the neces- 
sity for it ever so great : it was my rule, that 
every thing must give way to that. In the 
year 1809, some English local militiamen were 
flogged, in the Isle of Ely, in England, under 
a guard of Hanoverians, then stationed in 
England. I, reading an account of this in 
a London newspaper, called the Courier, 
expressed my indignation at it in such terms as 
it became an Englishman to do. The Attorney 
General, Gibbs, was, set on upon me ; he harassed 
me for nearly a year, then brought me to trial, 
and I was, by Ellenborough, Grose, Le Blanc, and 
Bailey, sentenced to two years' imprisonment in 
Newgate, to pay a fine to the king of a thousand 
jpounds, and to be held in heavy bail for seven 
years after the expiration ' of the imprisonment ! 
Every one regarded it as a sentence of death. 
I lived in the country at the time, seventy miles 
from London ; I had a farm on my hands ; I had 
a family of small children, amongst whom I had 
constantly lived ; I had a most anxious and de- 
voted wife, who was, too, in that state, which 



IV.] TO A HUSBAND. 

rendered the separation more painful ten-fold. 
I was, put into a place amongst felons, from 
which I had to rescue myself at the price of 
ttyelve guineas a week for the whole of the two 
years. The king, poor man ! was, at the close 
of my imprisonment, not in a condition to receive 
tke thousand pounds ; but his son, the present 
king, punctually received it " in his name and be- 
half ';" and he keeps it still. 

169. The sentence, though it proved not to be 
one of death, was, in effect, one of ruin, as far as 
then-possessed property went. But this really 
appeared as nothing, compared with the circum- 
stance, that I must now have a child born in a 
felons' jail, or be absent from the scene at the 
time of the birth. My wife, who had come to 
see me for the last time previous to her lying-in, 
perceiving my deep dejection at the approach of 
her departure for Botley, resolved not to go ; and 
actually went and took a lodging as near to New- 
gate as she could find one, in order that the 
communication between us might be as speedy as 
possible ; and in order that I might see the doc- 
tor, and receive assurances from him relative to 
her state. The nearest lodging that she could 
find was in Skinner -street, at the corner of a 
street leading to Smithfield. So that there she was, 
amidst the incessantrattle of coaches and butchers' 
carts, and the noise of cattle, dogs, and bawling 
men 5 instead of being in a quiet and commodi- 



cobbett's advice [Letter 

ous country-house, with neighbours and servants 
and every thing necessary about her. Yet, so 
great is the power of the mind in such cases, she, 
though the circumstances proved uncommonly 
perilous, and were attended with the loss of the 
child, bore her sufferings with the greatest com- 
posure, because, at any minute she could send a 
message to, and hear from, me. If she had gone 
to Botley, leaving me in that state of anxiety in 
which she saw me, I am satisfied that she would 
have died ; and that event taking place at such 
a distance from me, how was I to contemplate 
her corpse, surrounded by her distracted children, 
and to have escaped death, or madness, myself ? 
If such was not the effect of this merciless act of 
the government towards me, that amiable body 
may be well assured that I have taken mid re- 
corded the will for the deed, and that as such it 
will live in my memory as long as that memory 
shall last. 

170. I make no apology for this account of 
my own conduct, because example is better than 
precept, and because I believe that my example 
may have weight with many thousands, as it 
has had in respect to early rising, abstinence, 
sobriety, industry, and mercy towards the 
poor. It is not, then, dangling about after a 
wife ; it is not the loading her with baubles and 
trinkets ; it is not the jaunting of her about 
from show to show, and from what is called 



IV.] TO A HUSBAND. 

pleasure to pleasure. It is none of these that 
endears you to her : it is the adherence to that 
part of the promise you have made her : '^ With 
my body I thee worship;' that is to say, respect 
and honour by personal attention and acts of af-» 
fection. And remember, that the greatest pos- 
sible proof that you can give of real and solid 
affection is to give her your time, when not want- 
ed in matters of business; when not wanted for 
the discharge of some duty, either towards the 
public or towards private persons. Amongst du- 
ties of this sort, we must, of course, in some 
ranks and circumstances of life, include the in- 
tercourse amongst friends and neighbours, which, 
may frequently and reasonably call the husband 
from his home : but what are we to think of the 
husband who is in the habit of leaving his own 
fire-side, after the business of the day is over, 
and seeking promiscuous companions in the ale 
or the coffee house ? I am told that, in France, 
it is rare to meet with a husband who does not 
spend every evening of his life in what is called 
a caffg ; that is to say, a place for no other pur- 
pose than that of gossipping, drinking and 
gaming. And it is with great sorrow that I ac- 
knowledge that many English hm&bands indulge 
too much in a similar habit. Drinking clubs, 
smoking clubs, singing clubs, clubs of odd-fel- 
lows^ whist clubs, sotting clubs : these are inex- 
cusable, they are censurable, they are at once 



cobbett's advice [Letter 

foolish and wicked, even in single men ; what 
must they be, then, in husbands ; and how are 
they to answer, not only to their wives, but to 
therr children, for this profligate abandonment 
of their homes ; this breach of their solemn vow 
made to the former, this evil example to the 
latter? 

1,71- Innumerable are the miseries that 
spring from this cause. The expense is, in the 
first place, very considerable. I much question 
whether, amongst tradesmen, a shilling a night 
pays the average score ; and that, too, for that 
which is really worth nothing at all, and cannot, 
even by possibility, be attended with any one sin- 
gle advantage, however small. Fifteen pounds a 
year thus thrown away, would amount, in the 
course of a tradesman's life, to a decent fortune 
for a child. Then there is the injury to health 
from these night adventures; there are the 
quaiTels; there is the vicious habit of loose 
and filthy talk; there are the slanders and the 
backbitings ; there are the admiration of con- 
temptible wit, and there the scoffings at all that 
is sober and serious. 

172. And does the husband who thus abandons 
his wife and children imagine that she will not, in 
some degree at least, follow his example ? If he 
do, he is very much deceived. If she imitate him 
even in drinking, he has no great reason to com- 
- plain; and then the cost may be two shillings the 






IV.] TO A HUSBAND. 

night instead of one, equal in amount to the cost 
of all the bread wanted in the family, while the 
baker's bill is, perhaps, unpaid. Here are the 
slanderings, too, going on at home ; for, while the 
husbands are assembled, it would be hard if the 
wives were not to do the same ; and the very- 
least that is to be expected is, that the tea-pot 
should keep pace with the porter-pot or grog- 
glass. Hence crowds of female acquaintances and 
intruders,, and all the consequent and inevitable 
squabbles which form no small part of the tor- 
ment of the life of man. 

173. If you have servants, they know to a mo- 
ment the time of your absence ; and they regulate 
their proceedings accordingly. "Like master 
like man," is an old and true proverb ; and it is 
natural, if not just, that it should be thus \ for it 
would be unjust if the careless and neglectful sot 
were served as faithfully as the vigilant, attentive 
and sober man. Late hours, cards and dice, are 
amongst the consequences of the master's absence \ 
and why not, seeing that he is setting the ex- 
ample ? Fire, candle, profligate visitants, ex- 
pences, losses, children ruined in habits and 
morals, and, in short, a train of evils hardly to be 
enumerated, arise from this most vicious habit of 
the master spending his leisure time from home. 
But beyond all the rest is the ill-treatment of the 
wife. When left to ourselves we all seek the 
company that we like best; the company in 
l5 



cobbett's advice [Letter 

which we take the most delight ; and therefore 
every husband, be his state of life what it may, 
who spends his leisure time, or who, at least, is 
in the habit of doing it, in company other than 
that of his wife and family, tells her and them, as 
plainly by deeds as he could possibly do by words, 
that he takes more delight in other company than 
in theirs. Children repay this with disregard for 
their father ; but to a wife of any sensibility, it is 
either a dagger to her heart or an incitement to 
revenge, and revenge, too, of a species which a 
young woman will seldom be long in want of the 
means to gratify. In conclusion of these remarks 
respecting absentee husbands, I would recommend 
all those who are prone to, or likely to fall into, 
the practice, to remember the words of Mrs. Sul- 
len, in the Beaux Stratagem : "My husband," 
says she, addressing a footman whom she had 
taken as a paramour, " comes reeling home at 
" midnight, tumbles in beside me as a salmon 
" flounces in a net, oversets the economy of my 
a bed, belches the fumes of his drink in my 
" face, then twists himself round, leaving me half 
" naked, and listening till morning to that tune- 
" ful nightingale, his nose." It is at least forty- 
three years since I read the Beaux Stratagem, 
and I now quote from memory ; but the passage 
has always occurred to me whenever I have seen 
a sottish husband ; and though that species of 
revenge, for the taking of which the lady made 






IV,] TO A HUSBAND. - 

this apology, was carrying the thing too far, yet 
I am ready to confess, that if I had to sit in 
judgment on her for taking even this revenge, 
my sentence would be very lenient ; for what 
right has such a husband to expect fidelity ? He 
has broken his vow ; and by what rule of right has 
she to be bound to hers ? She thought that she 
was marrying a man; and she finds that she was 
married to a beast. He has, indeed, committed 
no offence that the law of the land can reach \ 
but he has violated the vow by which he obtained 
possession of her person; and, in the eye of jus- 
tice, the compact between them is dissolved. 

174. The way to avoid the sad consequences of 
which I have been speaking is to begin well; 
many a man has become a sottish husband, and 
brought a family to ruin, without being sottishly 
inclined, and without liking the gossip of the ale 
or coffee house. It is by slow degrees that the 
mischief is done. He is first inveigled, and, in 
time, he really likes the thing; and, when arrived 
at that point, he is incurable. Let him resolve, 
from the very first, never to spend an hour from 
home, unless business, or, at least, some necessary 
and rational purpose demand it. , Where ought 
he to be, but with the person whom he himself 
hath chosen to be his partner for life, and the 
mother of his children ? What other company 
ought he to deem so good and so fitting as this ? 
With whom else can he so pleasantly spend his 



cobbett's advice [Letter , 

hours of leisure and relaxation ? Besides, if he 
quit her to seek company more agreeable, is not 
she set at large by that act of his ? What justice is 
there in confining her at home without any com- 
pany at all, while he rambles forth in search of 
company more gay than he finds at home ? 

175. Let the young married man try the thing ; 
let him resolve not to be seduced from his home; let 
him never go, in one single instance, unnecessa- 
rily from his own .fire-side. Habit is a powerful 
thing; and if he begin right, the pleasure that he 
will derive from it will induce him to continue right. 
This is not being " tied to the apron-strings" 
which means quite another matter, as I shall 
show by-and-by. It is being at the husband's 
place, whether he have children or not. And is 
there any want of matter for conversation be- 
tween a man and his wife ? Why not talk of the 
daily occurrences to her, as well as to any body 
else ; and especially to a company of tippling and 
noisy men ? If you excuse yourself by saying 
that you go to read the ?iewspaper 9 1 answer, buy 
the newspaper, if you must read it : the cost is 
not half of what you spend per day at the pot- 
house ; and then you have it your own, and may 
read it at your leisure, and your wife can read it 
as well as yourself, if read it you must. And, in 
short, what must that man be made of, who does 
not prefer sitting by his own fire-side with his 
wife and children, reading to them, or hearing 



IV.] TO A HUSBAND, 

them read, to hearing the gabble and balderdash 
of a club or a pot-house company ! 

1/6. Men must frequently be from home at all 
hours of the day and night. Sailors, soldiers, 
merchants, all men out of the common track of 
labour, and even some in the very lowest walks, 
are sometimes compelled by their affairs, or by 
circumstances, to be from their homes. But 
what I protest against is, the habit of spending 
leisure -hours from home, and near to it ; and 
doing this without any necessity, and by choice : 
liking the next door, or any house in the same 
street, better than your own. When absent from 
necessity y there is no wound given to the heart of 
the wife ; she concludes that you would be with 
her if you could, and that satisfies ; she laments 
the absence, but submits to it without complain- 
ing. Yet, in these cases, her feelings ought to be 
consulted as much as possible ; she ought to be 
fully apprised of the probable duration of the 
absence, and of the time of return; and if these 
be dependent on circumstances, those circum- 
stances ought to be fully stated ; for you have no 
right to keep her mind upon the rack, when you 
have it in your power to put it in a state of ease. 
Few men have been more frequently taken from 
home by business, or by a necessity of some sort, 
than I have ; and I can positively assert, that, as 
to my return, I never once disappointed my wife 
in the whole course of our married life. If the 



cobbett's advice [Letter 

time of return was contingent, I never failed to 
keep her informed from day to day : if the time 
was fixed, or when it became fixed, my arrival 
was as sure as my life. Going from London to 
Botley, once, with Mr. Finnerty, whose name I 
can never pronounce without an expression of 
my regard for his memory, we stopped at Alton, 
to dine with a friend, who, delighted with Fin- 
nerty' s talk, as every body else was, kept us till 
ten or eleven o'clock, and was proceeding to the 
other bottle, when I put in my protest, saying, 
u We must go, my wife will be frightened." 
u Blood, man," said Finnerty, " you do not mean 
to go home to-night ! " I told him I did ; and 
then sent my son, who was with us, to order out 
the post-chaise. We had twenty-three miles to 
go, during which we debated the question, whe* 
ther Mrs. Cobbett would be up to receive us, I 
contending for the affirmative, and he for the ne- 
gative. She was up, and had a nice fire for us to 
sit down at. She had not committed the matter to 
a servant : her servants and children were all iri 
bed ; and she was up, to perform the duty of 
receiving her husband and his friend. " You did 
not expect him ? " said Finnerty. u To be sure 
I did," said she ; " he never disappointed me in 
his life." 

177. Now, if all young men knew how much 
value women set upon this species of fidelity, 
there would be fewer unhappy couples than there 



IV.] TO A HUSBAND. 

are. If men have appointments with lords, they 
never dream of breaking them ; and I can assure 
them that wives are as sensitive in this respect as 
lords. I had seen many instances of conjugal 
unhappiness arising out of that carelessness which 
left wives in a state of uncertainty as to the move- 
ments of their husbands ; and I took care, from 
the very outset, to guard against it. For no 
man has a right to sport with the feelings of any 
innocent person whatever, and particularly with 
those of one who has committed her happiness to 
his hands. The truth is, that men in general look 
upon women as having no feelings different from 
their own ; and they know that they themselves 
would regard such disappointments as nothing. 
But this is a great mistake : women feel more 
acutely than men ; their love is more ardent, 
more pure, more lasting, and they are more frank 
and sincere in the utterance of their feelings. 
They ought to be treated with due consideration 
had for all their amiable qualities and all their 
weaknesses, and nothing by which their minds are 
affected ought to be deemed a trifle. 

17S. When we consider what a young woman 
gives up on her wedding day ; she makes a sur- 
render, an absolute surrender, of her liberty, for 
the joint lives of the parties j she gives the husband 
the absolute right of causing her to live in what 
place, and in what manner and what society, he 
pleases 3 she gives him the power to take from 



cobbett's advice [Letter 

her, and to use, for his own purposes, all her goods, 
unless reserved by some legal instrument ; and, 
above all, she surrenders to him her person. Then, 
when we consider the pains which they endure for 
us, and the large share of all the anxious parental 
cares that fall to their lot ; when we consi- 
der their devotion to us, and how unshaken 
their affection remains in our ailments, even 
though the most tedious and disgusting; when 
we consider the offices that they perform, and 
cheerfully perform, for us, when, were we lefc to 
one another, we should perish from neglect ; 
when we consider their devotion to their children, 
how evidently they love them better, in nume- 
rous instances, than their own lives ; when we 
consider these things, how can a just man think 
any thing a trifle that affects their happiness ? I 
was once going, in my gig, up the hill, in the vil- 
lage of Frankford, near Philadelphia, when a 
little girl, about tw r o years old, who had toddled 
away from a small house, was lying basking in 
the sun, in the middle of the road. About two 
hundred yards before I got to the child, the 
teams, five big horses in each, of three wagons, 
the drivers of which had stopped to drink at a 
tavern on the brow of the hill, started off, and 
came, nearly abreast, galloping down the road. 
I got my gig off the road as speedily as I could ; 
but expected to see the poor child crushed to 
pieces. A young man, a journeyman carpenter, 



IV.] TO A HUSBAND. 

who was shingling a shed by the side of the road, 
seeing the child, and seeing the danger, though a 
stranger to ihe parents, jumped from the top of 
the shed, ran into the road, and snatched up the 
child, from scarcely an inch before the hoof of 
the leading horse. The horse's leg knocked him 
down ; but he, catching the child by its clothes, 
flung it back, out of the way of the other horses, 
and saved himself by rolling back with surprising 
agility. The mother of the child, who had, ap- 
parently, been washing, seeing the teams coming, 
and seeing the situation of the child, rushed out, 
and catching up the child, just as the carpenter 
had flung it back, and hugging it in her arms, 
littered a shriek such as I never heard before, 
never heard since, and, I hope, shall never hear 
again ; and then she dropped down, as if per- 
fectly dead ! By the application of the usual 
means, she was restored, however, in a little 
while ; and I, being about to depart, asked the 
carpenter if he were a married man, and whether 
he were a relation of the parents of the child. 
He said he was neither : " Well, then," said I, 
f* you merit the gratitude of every father and 
u mother in the world, and I will show mine, by 
€C giving you what I have," pulling out the nine 
or ten dollars that I had in my pocket. " No ; I 
thank you, Sir," said he : " I have only done 
what it was my duty to do." 

179. Bravery, disinterestedness, and maternal 



cobbett's advice [Letter 

affection surpassing these, it is impossible to 
imagine, The mother was going right in 
amongst the feet of these powerful and wild 
horses, and amongst the wheels of the wagons. 
She had no thought for herself; no feeling 
of fear for her own life; her shriek was the 
sound of inexpressible joy; joy too great for 
her to support herself under. Perhaps ninety- 
nine mothers out of every hundred would have- 
acted the same part, under similar circum- 
stances. There are, comparatively, very few 
women not replete with maternal love ; and, by- 
the-by, take you care, if you meet with a girl 
who " is not fond of children" not to marry her 
by any means. Some few there are who even make 
a boast that they u cannot bear children," that 
is, cannot endure them. I never knew a man 
that was good for much who had a dislike to 
little children j and I never knew a woman of 
that taste who was good for any thing at all. 
I have seen a few such in the course of my life, 
and I have never wished to see one of them a 
second time. 

180. Being fond of little children argues no 
effeminacy in a man, but, as far as my observation 
has gone, the contrary. A regiment of soldiers 
presents no bad school wherein to study cha- 
racter. Soldiers have leisure, too, to play with 
children, as well as with " women and dogs," for 
which the proverb has made them famed. And 



IV.] TO A HUSBAND. 

I have never observed that effeminacy was at all 
the marked companion of fondness for little 
children. This fondness manifestly arises from a 
compassionate feeling towards creatures that are 
helpless, and that must be innocent. For my 
own part, how many days, how many months, all 
put together, have I spent with babies in my arms ! 
My time, when at home, and when babies were 
going on, was chiefly divided between the pen and 
the baby. I have fed them and put them to sleep 
hundreds of times, though there were servants to 
whom the task might have been transferred. Yet, 
I have not been effeminate ; I have not been idle; 
I have not been a waster of time ; but I should 
have been all these if I had disliked babies, and 
had liked the porter pot and the grog glass. 

181. It is an old saying, " Praise the child, and 
you make love to the mother $" and it is surprising 
how far this will go. To a fond mother you can 
do nothing so pleasing as to praise the baby, and, 
the younger it is, the more she values the compli- 
ment. Say fine things to her, and take no notice 
of her baby, and she will despise you. I have 
often beheld this, in many women, with great ad- 
miration ; and it is a thing that no husband ought 
to overlook ; for if the wife wish her child to be 
admired by others, what must be the ardour of her 
wishes with regard to his admiration. There was 
a drunken dog of a Norfolk man in our regiment, 
who came from Thetford, I recollect, who used 



cobbett's advice [Letter 

to say, that his wife would forgive him for spend- 
ing all the pay, and the washing money into the 
bargain, " if he would but kiss her ugly brat, and 
say it was pretty." Now, though this was a very 
profligate fellow, he had philosophy in him ; and 
certain it is, that there is nothing worthy of the 
name of conjugal happiness, unless the husband 
clearly evince that he is fond of his children, and 
that, too, from their very birth. 

182. But though all the aforementioned con- 
siderations demand from us the kindest possible 
treatment of a wife, the husband is to expect 
dutiful deportment at her hands. He is not to 
be her slave ; he is not to yield to her against the 
dictates of his own reason and judgment 5 it is 
her duty to obey all his lawful commands ; and, 
if she have sense, she will perceive that it is a 
disgrace to herself to acknowledge, as a husband, 
a thing over which she has an absolute controul. 
It should always be recollected that you are the 
party whose body must, if any do, lie in jail for 
debt, and for debts of her contracting, too, as 
well as of your own contracting. Over her tongue, 
too, you possess a clear right to exercise, if ne- 
cessary, some controul ; for if she use it in an 
unjustifiable manner, it is against you, and not 
against her, that the law enables, and justly 
enables, the slandered party to proceed ; which 
would be monstrously unjust, if the law w r ere not 
founded on the right which the husband has to 



IV.] TO A HUSBAND. 

control, if necessary, the tongue of the wife, to 
compel her to keep it within the limits prescribed 
by the law. A charming, a most enchanting, life, 
indeed, would be that of a husband, if he were 
bound to cohabit with and to maintain one for all 
the debts and all the slanders of whom he was 
answerable, and over whose conduct he possessed 
no compulsory controul. 

183. Of the remedies in the case of really bad 
wives, squanderers, drunkards, adultresses, I shall 
speak further on 3 it being the habit of us all to put 
off to the last possible moment the performance 
of disagreeable duties. But, far short of these 
vices, there are several faults in a wife that may, 
if not cured in time, lead to great unhappiness, 
great injury to the interests as well as character 
of her husband and children ; and which faults it 
is, therefore, the husband's duty to correct. A 
wife may be chaste, sober in the full sense of the 
word, industrious, cleanly, frugal, and may be 
devoted to her husband and her children to a de- 
gree so enchanting as to make them all love her 
beyond the power of words to express. And yet 
she may, partly under the influence of her natural 
disposition, and partly encouraged by the great 
and constant homage paid to her virtues, and 
presuming, too, on the pain with which she knows 
her will would be thwarted \ she may, with all 
her virtues, be thus led to a hold interference in 
the affairs of her husband ; may attempt to die- 



cobbett's advice [Letter 

tate to him in matters quite out of her own sphere; 
arid, in the pursuit of the gratification of her 
love of power and command, may wholly over- 
look the acts of folly or injustice which she would 
induce her husband to commit, and overlook, too, 
the contemptible thing that she is making the man 
whom it is her duty to honour and obey, and the 
abasement of whom cannot take place without 
some portion of degradation falling upon herself. 
At the time when " THE BOOK " came out, 
relative to the late ill-treated Queen Caroline, 
I was talking upon the subject, one day, with a 
parson, who had not read the Book, but who, as 
was the fashion with all those who were looking 
up to the government, condemned the Queen 
unheard. " Now," said I, " be not so shame- 
w fully unjust; but get the book, read it, and 
66 then give your judgment." — " Indeed," said his 
wife, who was sitting by, " but HE SH'A NT," 
pronouncing the words sha n't with an emphasis 
and a voice tremendously masculine. u Oh ! " 
said I, "if he SHA' N'T, that is another matter; 
u but, if he sha' n't read, if he sha' n't hear the 
u evidence, he sha' n't be looked upon, by me, as 
" a just judge ; and I sha' n't regard him, in fu- 
" ture, as having any opinion of his own in any 
" thing." All which the husband, the poor hen- 
pecked thing, heard without a word escaping 
his lips. 

184. A husband thus under command, is the 



IV.] # TO A HUSBAND. 

most contemptible of God's creatures. Nobody 
can place reliance on him for any thing; whether 
in the capacity of employer or employed, you 
are never sure of him. No bargain is firm, no 
engagement sacred, with such a man. Feeble 
as a reed before the boisterous she-commander, 
he is bold in injustice towards those whom it 
pleases her caprice to mark out for vengeance. In 
the eyes of neighbours, for friends such a man 
cannot have, in the eyes of servants, in the eyes 
of even the beggars at his door, such a man is 
a mean and despicable creature, though he may 
roll in wealth and possess great talents into the 
bargain. Such a man has, in fact, no property; 
he has nothing that he can rightly call his own / 
he is a beggarly dependent under his own roof; 
and if he have any thing of the man left in him, 
and if there be rope or river near, the sooner he 
betakes him to the one or the other the better. 
How many men, how many families, have I known 
brought to utter ruin only by the husband suffer- 
ing himself to be subdued, to be cowed down, to 
be held in fear, of even a virtuous wife ! What, 
then, must be the lot of him who submits to a 
commander who, at the same time, sets all vir- 
tue at defiance ! 

185. Women are a sisterhood. They make 
common cause in behalf of the sex ; and, indeed, 
this is natural enough, when we consider the vast 



' cobbett's advice [Lette 

power that the law gives us over them. The law 
is for us, and they combine, wherever they can, 
to mitigate its effects. This is perfectly natural, 
and, to a certain extent, laudable, evincing fel- 
low-feeling and public spirit : but when carried 
to the length of a he sha'nt" it is despotism on 
the one side and slavery on the other. Watch, 
therefore, the incipient steps of encroachment; 
and they come on so slowly, so softly, that you 
must be sharp-sighted if you perceive them ; but 
the moment yo\i m do perceive them: your love will 
blind for too long a time 5 but the moment you 
do perceive them, put at once an effectual stop 
to their progress. Never mind ttie pain that it 
may give you : a day of pain at this time will 
spare you years of pain in time to come. Many 
a man has been miserable, and made his wife 
miserable too, for a score or two of years, only 
for want of resolution to bear one day of pain : 
and it is a great deal to bear ; it is a great deal 
to do to thwart the desire of one whom you so 
dearly love, and whose virtues daily render her 
more and more dear to you. But (and this is 
one of the most admirable of the mother's traits) 
as she herself will, while the tears stream from 
her eyes, force the nauseous medicine down the 
throat of her child, whose every cry is a dagger 
to her heart ; as she herself has the courage to 
do this for the sake of her child, why should you 



IV.] TO A HUSBAND. 

flinch from the performance of a still more im- 
portant and more sacred duty towards herself, as 
well as towards you and your children? 

186. Am I recommending tyranny? Ami 
recommending disregard of the wife's opinions 
and wishes? Am I recommending a reserve 
towards her that would seem to say that she was 
not trust- worthy, or not a party interested in her 
husband's affairs ? By no means : on the con- 
trary., though I would keep any thing disagreeable 
from her, 1 should not enjoy the prospect of good 
without making her a participator. But reason 
says, and God has said, that it is the duty of 
wives to be obedient to their, husbands ; and the 
very nature of things prescribes that there must 
be a head of every house, and an undivided au- 
thority. And then it is so clearly just that the 
authority should rest with him on whose head 
rests the whole responsibility, that a woman, 
when patiently reasoned with on the subject, 
must be a virago in her very nature not to submit 
with docility to the terms of her marriage vow. 

187. There are, in almost every eons aerable 
neighbourhood, a little squadron of sne-com- 
manders, generally the youngish wives of old or^ 
weak-minded men, and generally without child- 
ren. These are the tutoresses of the young wives 
of the vicinage ; they, in virtue of their experi- 
ence, not only school the wives, but scold the 
husbands; they teach the former how to en- 

•M 



cobbett's advice [Letter 

croach and the latter how to yield : so that if 
you suffer this to go quietly on, you are soon 
under the care of a comit4 as completely as if 
you were insane. You want no comittf : rea- 
son, law, religion, the marriage vow ; all these 
have made you head, have given you full power 
to rule your family, and if you give up your 
right, you deserve the contempt that assuredly 
awaits you, and also the ruin that is, in all pro- 
bability, your doom. 

188. Taking it for granted that you will not 
suffer mQre than a second or third session of the 
female comite, let me say a word or two about 
the conduct of men in deciding between the con- 
flicting opinions of husbands and wives. When 
a wife has a point to carry, and finds herself hard 
pushed, or when she thinks it necessary to call 
to her aid all the force she can possibly muster; 
one of her resources is, the vote on her side of 
all her husband's visiting friends. " My husband 
" thinks so and so, and I think so and so ; now, 
" Mr. Tomkins, dont you think / am right?" To 
be sure he does ; and so does Mr. Jenkins, and 
so does Wilkins, and so does Mr. Dickins, and 
you would swear that they were all her kins. 
Now this is very foolish, to say the least of it. 
None of these complaisant kins would like this in 
their own case. It is the fashion to say aye to 
all that a woman asserts, or contends for, espe- 
cially in contradiction to her husband ; and 






IV.] TO A HUSBAND. 

a very pernicious fashion it is. It is, in fact, not 
to pay her a compliment worthy of acceptance, 
but to treat her as an empty and conceited fool; 
and no sensible woman will, except from mere 
inadvertence, make the appeal. This fashion, 
however, foolish and contemptible as it is in 
itself, is attended, very frequently, with serious 
consequences. Backed by the opinion of her 
husband's friends, the wife returns to the charge 
with redoubled vigour and obstinacy; and if 
you do not yield, ten to one but a quarrel is 
the result; or, at least, something approach- 
ing towards it. A gentleman at whose house 
I was, about five years ago, was about to take 
a farm for his eldest son, who was a very fine 
young man, about eighteen years old. The 
mother, who was as virtuous and as sensible a 
woman as I have ever known, wished him to be 
"in the law." There were six or eight intimate 
friends present, and all unhesitatingly joined the 
lady, thinking it a pity that Harry, who had 
had a such a good education," should be buried 
in a farm-house. "And don't you think so too, 
Mr. Cobbett," said the lady, with great earnest- 
ness. " Indeed, Ma'am," said I, " I should think 
"it very great presumption in me to offer any 
" opinion at all, and especially in opposition to 
" the known decision of the father, who is the 
" best judge, and the only rightful judge, in such 
" a case." This was a very sensible and well-be- 



cobbett's advice [Letter 

haved woman, and I still respect her very highly; 
but I could perceive that I instantly dropped out 
of her good graces. Harry, however, I was glad 
to hear, went " to be buried in the farm-house." 
189. "A house divided against itself," or, 
rather, in itself, " cannot stand ;" and it is divid- 
ed against itself if there be a divided authority. 
The wife ought to be heard, and patiently heard ; 
she ought to be reasoned with, and, if possible, 
convinced ; but if, after all endeavours in this 
way, she remain opposed to the husband's opinion, 
his will must be obeyed ; or he, at once, becomes 
nothing ; she is, in fact, the master, and he is 
nothing but an insignificant inmate. As to mat- 
ters of little comparative moment; as to what 
shall be for dinner ; as to how the house shall be 
furnished; as to the management of the house and 
of menial servants : as to those matters, and 
many others, the wife may have her way without 
any danger ; but when the questions are, what is 
to be the calling to be pursued ; what is to be 
the place of residence ; what is to be the style of 
living and scale of expence ; what is to be done 
with property; what the manner and place of 
educating children ; what is to be their -calling or 
state of life ; who are to be employed or entrust- 
ed by the husband ; what are the principles that 
he is to adopt as to public matters ; whom he is 
to have for coadjutors or friends; all these must 
be left solely to the husband ; in all these he 



IV.] TO A HUSBAND. 

must have his will ; or there never can be any 
harmony in the family. 

190. Nevertheless, in some of these concerns, 
wives should be heard with a great deal of 
attention, especially in the affairs of choosing 
your male acquaintances and friends and asso- 
ciates. Women are more quick-sighted than 
men 5 they are less disposed to confide in persons 
upon a first acquaintance ; they are more sus- 
picious as to motives 3 they are less liable to 
be deceived by professions and protestations ; 
they watch words with a more scrutinizing ear, 
and looks with a keener eye ; and, making due 
allowance for their prejudices in particular 
cases, their opinions and remonstrances, with re- 
gard to matters of this sort, ought not to be set 
at naught without great deliberation. Louvet, 
one of the Brissotins who fled for their lives in 
the time of Robespierre 5 this Lou vet, in his 
narrative, entitled " Mes Perils" and which I 
read, for the first time, to divert my mind from 
the perils of the yellow-fever, hi Philadelphia, 
but with which I was so captivated as to have 
read it many times since ; this writer, giving an 
account of his wonderful dangers and escapes, 
relates, that being on his way to Paris from the 
vicinity of Bordeaux, and having no regular pass- 
port, fell lame, but finally crept on to a miserable 
pot-house, in a small town in the Limosin. The 
landlord questioned him with regard to who and 



cobbett's advice [Letter 

what he was, and whence he came; and was 
satisfied with his answers. But the landlady, 
who had looked sharply at him on his arrival, 
whispered a little boy, who ran away, and quickly 
returned with the mayor of the town. Lou vet 
soon discovered that there was no danger in the 
mayor, who could not decipher his forged pass- 
port, and who, being well plied with wine, wanted 
to hear no more of the matter. The landlady, 
perceiving this, slipped out and brought a couple 
of aldermen, who asked to see the passport. " O, 
yes; but drink first!' Then there was a laugh- 
ing story to tell over agam, at the request of the 
half-drunken mayor; then a laughing and more 
drinking; the passport in Louvet's hand, but 
never opened, and, while another toast was 
drinking, the passport slid back quietly into the 
pocket; the woman looking furious all the while. 
At last, the mayor, the aldermen, and the land- 
lord, all nearly drunk, shook hands with Louvet, 
and wished him a good journey, swore he was a 
true sans culotte ; but, he says, that the u sharp- 
" sighted woman, who was to be deceived by 
"none of his stories or professions, saw him get 
" off with deep and manifest disappointment and 
ce chagrin/' I have thought of this many times 
since, when I have had occasion to witness the 
quick-sightedness and penetration of women. 
The same quality that makes them, as they no- 
toriously are, more quick in discovering expedi- 



IV.] TO A HUSBAND. 

ents in cases of difficulty* makes them more apt 
to penetrate into motives and character. 

191. I now come to a matter of the greatest 
possible importance ; namely, that great troubler 
of the married state, that great bane of families^ 
jealousy; and I shall first speak of jealousy in 
the ivife. This is always an unfortunate things 
and sometimes fatal. Yet, if there be a great 
propensity towards it, it is very difficult to be pre- 
vented. One thing, however, every husband can 
do in the way of prevention ; and that is, to give 
no ground for it. And here, it is not sufficient 
that he strictly adhere to his marriage vow ; he 
ought further to abstain from every art, however 
free from guilt, calculated to awaken the slightest 
degree of suspicion in a mind, the peace of which 
he is bound by every tie of justice and humanity 
not to disturb, or, if he can avoid it, to suffer it 
to be disturbed by others. A woman that is very 
fond of her husband, and this is the case with 
nine-tenths of English and American women, 
does not like to share with another any, even the 
smallest portion, not only of his affection, but of 
his assiduities and applause; and, as the bestow- 
ing of them on another, and receiving payment in 
kind, can serve no purpose other than of gratify- 
ing one's vanity, they ought to be abstained from, 
and especially if the gratification be to be pur- 
chased with even the chance of exciting uneasi- 
n2 



cobbett's advice [Letter 

ness in her, whom it is your sacred duty to make 
as happy as you can. 

192. For about two or three years after I was 
married, I, retaining some of my military man- 
ners, used, both in France and America, to romp 
most famously with the girls that came in my 
way ; till one day, at Philadelphia, my wife said 
to me, in a very gentle manner, " Don't do that : 
" / do not like it" That was quite enough : I 
had never thought on the subject before : one 
hair of her head was more dear to me than all 
the other women in the world, and this I knew 
that she knew ; but I now saw that this was not 
all that she had a right to from me ; I saw, that 
she had the further claim upon me that I should 
abstain from every thing that might induce others 
to believe that there was any other woman for 
whom, even if I were at liberty, I had any affec- 
tion. I beseech young married men to bear this 
in mind j for, on some trifle of this sort, the hap- 
piness or misery of a long life frequently turns. 
If the mind of a wife be disturbed on this score, 
every possible means ought to be used to restore 
it to peace ; and though her suspicions be per- 
fectly groundless ; though they be wild as the 
dreams of madmen ; though they may present a 
mixture of the furious and the ridiculous, still 
they are to be treated with the greatest lenity and 
tenderness 5 and if, after all, you fail, the frailty 



IV.] TO A HUSBAND. 

is to be lamented as a misfortune, and not punish- 
ed as a fault, seeing that it must have its founda- 
tion in a feeling towards you, which it would be 
the basest of ingratitude, and the most ferocious 
of cruelty, to repay by harshness of any descrip- 
tion. 

193. As to those husbands who make the 
unjust suspicions of their wives a justification for 
making those suspicions just ; as to such as can 
make a sport of such suspicions, rather brag of 
them than otherwise, and endeavour to aggravate 
rather than assuage them ; as to such I have no- 
thing to say, they being far without the scope of 
any advice that I can offer. But to such as are 
not of this description, I have a remark or two to 
offer with respect to measures of prevention. 

194. And, first, I never could see the sense of its 
being a piece of etiquette, a sort of mark of good 
breeding ', to make it a rule that man and wife are 
not to sit side by side in a mixed company; that 
if a party walk out, the wife is to give her arm to 
some other than her husband \ that if there be 
any other hand near, his is not to help to a seat 
or into a carriage. I never could see the sense of 
this ; but I have always seen the nonsense of it 
plainly enough : it is, in short, amongst many 
other foolish and mischievous things that we do 
in aping the manners of those whose riches (fre- 
quently ill-gotten) and whose power embolden 
them to set, with impunity, pernicious examples ; 



cobbett's advice [Letter 

and to their examples this nation owes more of 
Its degradation in morals than to any other source. 
The truth is, that this is a piece of false refine- 
ment: it, being interpreted, means, that so free 
are the parties from a liability to suspicion, so in- 
nately virtuous and pure are they, that each man 
can safely trust his wife with another man, and 
each woman her husband with another woman. 
But this piece of false refinement, like all others, 
overshoots its mark g it says too much ; for it 
says that the parties have lewd thovghts in their 
minds. This is not the fact, with regard to peo- 
ple in general ; but it must have been the origin 
of this set of consummately ridiculous and con- 
temptible rules. 

195. Now I would advise a young man, espe- 
cially if he have a pretty wife, not to commit her 
unnecessarily to the care of any other man ; not to 
be separated from her in this studious and cere- 
monious manner; and not to be ashamed to pre- 
fer her company and conversation to that of any 
other woman. I never could discover any good- 
treeding in setting another man, almost ex- 
pressly, to poke his nose up in the face of my 
wife, and talk nonsense to her ; for, in such 
cases, nonsense it generally is. It is not a thing 
of much consequence, to be sure ; but when the 
wife is young, especially, it is not seemly, at any 
rate, and it cannot possibly lead to any good, 
though it may not lead to any great evil. And, 



IV.] TO A HUSEAND. 

on the other hand, you may be quite sure that, 
whatever she may seem to think of the matter, 
she will not like you the better for your attentions 
of this sort to other women, especially if they 
be young and handsome : and as this species of 
fashionable nonsense can do you no good, why 
gratify your love of talk, or the vanity of any 
woman, at even the risk of exciting uneasiness in 
that mind of which it is your most sacred duty 
to preserve, if you can, the uninterrupted tran- 
quillity. 

196. The truth is, that the greatest security of 
all against jealousy in a wife is to show, to prove, 
by your acts, by your words also, but more espe- 
cially by your acts, that you prefer her to all the 
world ; and, as I said before, I know of no act 
that is, in this respect, equal to spending in her 
company every moment of your leisure time. 
Every body knows, and young wives better than 
any body else, that people, who can choose, will 
be where they like best to be, and that they will be 
along with those whose company they best like. The 
matter is very plain, then, and I do beseech you 
to bear it in mind. Nor do I see the use, or sense, 
of keeping a great deal of company, as it is called. 
What company can a young man and woman 
want more than their two selves, and their chil- 
dren, if they have any ? If here be not company 
enough, it is but a sad affair. The pernicious 
cards are brought forth by the company-keeping, 



cob Beit's advice [Letter 

the rival expenses, the sittings up late at night, 
the seeing of " the ladies home" and a thousand 
squabbles and disagreeable consequences. But, 
the great thing of all is, that this hankering after 
company, proves, clearly proves, 1 that you ivant 
something beyond the society of your wife ; and 
that she is sure to feel most acutely : the bare fact 
contains an imputation against her, and it is 
pretty sure to lay the foundation of jealousy, or 
of something still worse. 

1 97. If acts of kindness in you are necessary in all 
cases, they are especially so in cases of her illness, 
from whatever cause arising. I will not suppose 
myself to be addressing any husband capable of be- 
ing unconcerned while his wife's lifeis in the most 
distant danger from illness, though it has been my 
very great mortification to know in my life time, 
two or three brutes of this description ; but, far 
short of this degree of brutality, a great deal of 
fault may be committed. When men are ill, they 
feel every neglect with double anguish, and, what 
then must be in such cases the feelings of women, 
whose ordinary feelings are so much more acute 
than those of men ; what must be their feelings 
in case of neglect in illness, and especially if the 
neglect come from the husband ! Your own heart 
will, I hope, tell you what those feelings must be, 
and will spare me the vain attempt to describe 
them ; and, if it do thus instruct you, you will 
want no arguments from me to induce you, at 



IV.] TO A HUSBAND. 

such a season, to prove the sincerity of your af- 
fection by every kind word and kind act that your 
mind can suggest. This is the time to try you ; 
and, be you assured, that the impression left on 
Tier mind now will be the true and lasting im- 
pression; and, if it be good, will be a better 
preservative against her being jealous, than ten 
thousand of your professions ten thousand times 
repeated. In such a ease, you ought to spare no 
expense that you can possibly afford ; you ought 
to neglect nothing that your means will enable 
you to do ; for, what is the use of money if it be 
not to be expended in this case? But, more than 
all the rest, is your ownpersonal attention. This 
is the valuable thing; this is the great balm to 
the sufferer, and, it is efficacious in proportion as 
it is proved to be sincere. Leave nothing to other 
hands that you can do yourself; the mind has a 
great deal to do in all the ailments of the body, 
and, bear in mind, that, whatever be the event, 
you have a more than ample reward. I cannot 
press this point too strongly upon you ; the bed 
of sickness presents no charms, no allurements, 
and women know this well ; they watch, in such 
a case, your every word and every look : and now 
it is that their confidence is secured, or their sus- 
picions excited, for life. 

198. In conclusion of these remarks, as to jea- 
lousy in a wife, I cannot help expressing my 
abhorrence of those husbands who treat it as 
n5 



cobbett's advice [Letter 

a matter for ridicule. To be sure, infidelity in a 
man is less heinous than infidelity in the wife ; 
but still, is the marriage vow nothing? Is a 
promise solemnly made before God, and in the 
face of the world, nothing? Is a violation of 
a contract, and that, too, with a feebler party, 
nothing of which a man ought to be ashamed ? 
But, besides all these, there is the cruelty* First, 
you win, by great pains, perhaps, a woman's af- 
fections ; then, in order to get possession of her 
person, you marry her; then, after enjoyment, 
you break your vow, you bring upon her the 
mixed pity and jeers of the world, and thus you 
leave her to weep out her life. Murder is more 
horrible than this, to be sure, and the criminal 
law, which punishes divers other crimes, does not 
reach this ; but, in the eye of reason and of moral 
justice, it is surpassed by very few of those crimes. 
Passion may be pleaded, and so it may, for 
almost every other crime of which man can be 
guilty. It is not a crime against nature; nor are 
any of these which men commit in consequence 
©f their necessities. The temptation is great ; 
^ind is not the temptation great when men thieve 
or rob ? In short, there is no excuse for an act 
so unjust and so cruel, and the world is just as 
to this matter ; for, I have always observed, that, 
however men are disposed to laugh at these 
breaches of vows in men, the act seldom fails to 
produce injury to the whole character; it leaves, 



IV.] TO A HUSBAND. 

after all the joking, a stain, and, amongst those 
who depend on character for a livelihood, it often 
produces ruin. At the very least, it makes an 
unhappy and wrangling family ; it makes children 
despise or hate their fathers, and it affords an 
example at the thought of the ultimate conse- 
quences of which a father ought to shudder. In 
such a case, children will take part, and they 
ought to take part, with the mother : she is the 
injured party; the shame brought upon her at- 
taches, in part, to them : they feel the injustice 
done them ; and, if such a man, when the grey 
hairs, and tottering knees, and piping voice come, 
look round him in vain for a prop, let him, at last, 
be just, and acknowledge that he has now the due 
reward of his own wanton cruelty to one whom 
he had solemnly sworn to love and to cherish to 
the last hour of his or her life. 

199. But, bad as is conjugal infidelity in the hus- 
band, it is much worse in the vAfe : a proposition 
that it is necessary to maintain by the force of 
reason, because the women, as a sisterhood, are 
prone to deny the truth of it. They say that 
adultery As adultery, in men as well as in themj 
and that, therefore, the offence is as great in the 
one case as in the other. As a crime, abstractedly 
considered, it certainly is; but, as to the conse- 
quences, there is a wide difference. In both cases, 
there is the breach of a solemn vow, but, there is 
this great distinction, that the husband, by his 



cobbett's advice [Letter 

breach of that vow, only brings shame upon his 
wife and family ; whereas the wife, by a breach 
of her vow, may bring the husband a spurious 
offspring to maintain, and may bring that spurious 
offspring to rob of their fortunes, and in some 
cases of their bread, her legitimate children. So 
that here is a great and evident wrong done to 
numerous parties, besides the deeper disgrace 
inflicted in this case than in the other. 

200. And why is the disgrace deeper ? Be- 
cause here is a total want of delicacy ; here is, 
in fact, prostitution ; here is grossness and filthi- 
ness of mind ; here is every thing that argues 
baseness of character. Women should be, and 
they are, except in few instances, far more re- 
served and more delicate than men ; nature bids 
them be such; the habits and manners of the 
world confirm this precept of nature ; and there- 
fore, when they commit this offence, they excite 
loathing, as well as call for reprobation. In the 
countries where a plurality of wives is permitted, 
there is no plurality of husbands. It is there 
thought not at all indelicate for a man to have 
several wives ; but the bare thought of a woman 
having two husbands would excite horror. The 
widows of the Hindoos burn themselves in the 
pile that consumes their husbands; but the 
Hindoo widoivers do not dispose of themselves in 
this way. The widows devote their bodies to 
complete destruction, lest, even after the death of 



IV.] TO A HUSBAND. 

their husbands, they should be tempted to con- 
nect themselves with other men ; and though this 
is carrying delicacy far indeed, it reads to Chris- 
tian wives a lesson not unworthy of their atten- 
tion; for, though it is not desirable that their 
bodies should be turned into handfuls of ashes, 
even that transmutation were preferable to that 
infidelity which fixes the brand of shame on the 
cheeks of their parents, their children, and on 
those of all who ever called them friend. 

201. For these plain and forcible reasons it is 
that this species of offence is far more heinous in 
the wife than in the husband; and the people of 
all civilized countries act upon this settled dis- 
tinction. Men who have been guilty of the of- 
fence are not cut off from society, but women 
who have been guilty of it are ; for, as we all 
know well, no woman, married or single, of fair 
reputation, will risk that reputation by being ever 
seen, if she can avoid it, with a woman who has 
ever, at any time, committed this offence, which 
contains in itself, and by universal award, a sen- 
tence of social excommunication for life. 

202. If, therefore, it be the duty of the hus- 
band to adhere strictly to his marriage vow : if 
his breach of that vow be naturally attended with 
the fatal consequences above described : how 
much more imperative is the duty on the wife to 
avoid, even the semblance of a deviation from 
that vow ! If the man's misconduct, in this re- 



cobbett's advice [Letter 

spect, bring shame on so many innocent parties, 
what shame, what dishonour, what misery follow 
such misconduct in the wife ! Her parents, those 
of her husband, all her relations, and all her 
friends, share in her dishonour. And her children! 
how is she to make atonement to them ! They 
are commanded to honour their father and their 
mother ; but not such a mother as this, who, on 
the contrary, has no claim to any thing from 
them but hatred, abhorrence, and execration. It 
is she who has broken the ties of nature ; she has 
dishonoured her own offspring ; she has fixed a 
mark of reproach on those who once made a 
part of her own body ; nature shuts her out of 
the pale of its influence, and condemns her to the 
just detestation of those whom it formerly bade 
love her as their own life. 

203. But as the crime is so much more heinous, 
and the punishment so much more severe, in the 
case of the wife than it is in the case of the hus- 
band, so the caution ought to be greater in making 
the accusation, or entertaining the suspicion. 
Men ought to be very slow in entertaining such 
suspicions : they ought to have clear proof be- 
fore they can suspect ; a proneness to such sus- 
picions is a very unfortunate turn of the mind ; 
and, indeed, few characters are more despicable 
than that of a. jealous-headed husband; rather 
than be tied to the whims of one of whom, an 
innocent woman of spirit would earn her bread 



IV.] TO A HUSBAND. 

over the washing-tub, or with a hay-fork, or a 
reap-hook. With such a man there can be no 
peace ; and, as far as children are concerned, 
the false accusation is nearly equal to the reality. 
When a wife discovers her jealousy, she merely 
imputes to her husband inconstancy and breach 
of his marriage vow; but jealousy in him im- 
putes to her a willingness to palm a spurious 
offspring upon him, and upon her legitimate 
children, as robbers of their birthright; and, be- 
sides this, grossness, filthiness, and prostitution. 
She imputes to him injustice and cruelty: but he 
imputes to her that which banishes her from 
society; that which cuts her off for life from 
every thing connected with female purity ; that 
which brands her with infamy to her latest 
breath. 

204. Very slow, therefore, ought a husband to 
be in entertaining even the thought of this crime 
in his wife. He ought to be quite sure before he 
take the smallest step in the way of accusation ; 
but if unhappily he have the proof, no considera- 
tion on earth ought to induce him to cohabit with 
her one moment longer. Jealous husbands are not 
despicable because they have grounds; but because 
they have not grounds; and this is generally 
the case. When they have grounds, their own 
honour commands them to cast off the object, as 
they would cut out a corn or a cancer. It is not 
the jealousy in itself, which is despicable ; but 



cobbett's advice [Letter 

the continuing to live in that state. It is no dis- 
honour to be a slave in Algiers, for instance ; the 
dishonour begins only where you remain a slave 
voluntarily ; it begins the moment you can es- 
cape from slavery, and do not. It is despicable 
unjustly to be jealous of your wife ; but it is in- 
famy to cohabit with her if \ou know her to be 
guilty. 

205. I shall be told that the law compels you 
to live with her, unless you be rich enough to 
disengage yourself from her ; but the law does not 
compel you to remain in the same country with 
Tier ; and, if a man have no other means of rid- 
ding himself of such a curse, what are mountains 
or seas or traverse ? And what is the risk (if such 
there be) of exchanging a life of bodily ease for a 
life of labour ? What are these, and numerous 
other ills (if they happen) superadded ? Nay, 
what is death itself, compared with the baseness, 
the infamy, the never-ceasing shame and re- 
proach of living under the same roof with a pro- 
stituted women, and calling her your wife ? But, 
there are children^ and what are to become of 
these ? To be taken away from the prostitute, 
to be sure j and this is a duty which you owe 
to them : the sooner they forget her the better, 
and the farther they are from her, the sooner that 
will be. There is no excuse for continuing to 
live with an adultress ; no inconvenience, no loss, 
no suffering, ought to deter a man from deliver- 



IV.] TO A HUSBAND. 

ing himself from such a state of filthy infamy } 
and to suffer his children to remain in such a 
state, is a crime that hardly admits of adequate 
description; a jail is paradise compared with 
such a life, and he who can endure this latter, 
from the fear of encountering hardship, is a 
wretch too despicable to go by the name of man. 
206. But, now, all this supposes, that the hus- 
band has well and truly acted his part ! It sup- 
poses, not only that he has been faithful ; but, that 
he has not, in any way, been the cause of tempta- 
tion to the wife to be unfaithful. If he have been 
cold and neglectful ; if he have led a life of irregu- 
larity : if he have proved to her that home was 
not his delight; if he have made his house the 
place of resort for loose companions ; if he have 
given rise to a taste for visiting, junketting, par- 
ties of pleasure and gaiety ; if he have introduced 
the habit of indulging in what are called "mno- 
cent freedoms ;" if these, or any of these, the 
fault is his, he must take the consequences, and 
he has no right to inflict punishment on the of- 
fender, the offence being in fact of his own creat- 
ing. The laws of God, as well as the laws of 
man, have given him all power in this respect : 
it is for him to use that power for the honour of 
his wife as well as for that of himself : if he neg- 
lect to use it, all the consequences ought to fall 
on him ; and, as far as my observation has gone, 
in nineteen out of twenty cases of infidelity in 



cojbbett's advice [Letter 

wives, the crimes have been fairly ascribable to 
the husbands. Folly or misconduct in the hus- 
band, cannot, indeed, justify or even palliate in- 
fidelity in the wife, whose very nature ought to 
make her recoil at the thought of the offence; 
but it may, at the same time, deprive him of the 
right of inflicting punishment on her : her kin- 
dred, her children, and the world, will justly 
hold her in abhorrence ; but the husband must 
hold his peace. 

207. " Innocent freedoms ! " I know of none 
that a wife can indulge in. The words, as ap- 
plied to the demeanour of a married woman, or 
even a single one, imply a, contradiction. For 
freedom, thus used, means an exemption or de- 
parture from the strict rules of female reserve ; 
and, I do not see how this can be innocent. It 
may not amount to crime, indeed ; but, still it is 
not innocent; and the use of the phrase is dan- 
gerous. If it had been my fortune to be yoked 
to a person, who liked " innocent freedoms/' I 
should have unyoked myself in a very short time* 
But, to say the truth, it is all a man's own fault. 
If he have not sense and influence enough to pre- 
vent " innocent freedoms," even before marriage, 
he will do well to let the thing alone, and leave 
wives to be managed by those who have. But, 
men will talk to your wife, and flatter her. To 
be sure they will, if she be young and pretty; 
and would you go and pull her away from them ? O 



IV.] TO A HUSBAND. 

no, by no means ; but you must have very little 
sense, or must have made very little use of it, if 
her manner do not soon convince them that they 
employ their flattery in vain. 

208. So much of a man's happiness and of his 
efficiency through life depends upon his mind be- 
ing quite free from all anxieties of this sort, that 
too much care cannot be taken to guard against 
them ; and, I repeat, that the great preservation 
of all is, the young couple living as much as pos- 
sible at home, and having as few visitors as 
possible. If they do not prefer the company of 
each other to that of all the world besides ; if 
either of them be weary of the company of the 
other ; if they do not, when separated by business 
or any other cause, think with pleasure of the 
time of meeting again, it is a bad omen. Pur- 
sue this course when young, and the very thought 
of jealousy will never come into your mind ; and, 
if you do pursue it, and show by your deeds that 
you value your wife as you do your own life, you 
must be pretty nearly an idiot, if she do not 
think you to be the wisest man in the world. 
The best man she will be sure to think you, and 
she will never forgive any one that calls your 
talents or your wisdom in question. 

209. Now, will you say that, if to be happy, 
nay, if to avoid misery and ruin in the married 
state, requires all these precautions, all these 
cares, to fail to any extent in any of which is to 



cobbett's advice [Letter 

bring down on a man's head such fearful conse- 
quences ; will you say that, if this be the case, 
it is better to remain single ? If you should say 
this, it is my business to show that ydu are in 
error. For, in the first place, it is against nature 
to suppose that children can cease to be born j 
they must and will come \ and then it follows, 
that they must come by promiscuous intercourse, 
or by particular connexion. The former nobody 
will contend for, seeing that it would put us, in 
this respect, on a level with the brute creation. 
Then, as the connexion is to be particular 5 it 
must be during pleasure, or for the joint lives of 
the parties. The former would seldom hold for 
any length of time ; the tie would seldom be 
durable, and it would be feeble on account of its 
uncertain duration. Therefore, to be a father 1 , 
with all the lasting and delightful ties attached 
to the name, you must first be a husband ; and 
there are very few men in the world who do not, 
first or last, desire to be fathers. If it be said, 
that marriage ought not to be for life, but that its 
duration ought to be subject to the will, the 
mutual will at least, of the parties; the answer 
is, that it would seldom be of long duration. 
Every trifling dispute would lead to a separation } 
a hasty word would be enough. Knowing that the 
engagement is for life, prevents disputes too ; it 
checks anger in its beginnings. Put a rigging 
horse into a field with a weak fence, and with 



IV.} TO A HUSBAND. 

captivating pasture on the other side, and he is 
continually trying to get out; but, let the field 
be walled round, he makes the best of his hard 
fare, and divides his time between grazing and 
sleeping. Besides, there could be no families, 
no assemblages of persons worthy of that name ; 
all would be confusion and indescribable inter- 
mixture : the names of brother and sister would 
hardly have a meaning; and, therefore, there 
must be marriage, or there can be nothing wor- 
thy of the name of family or of father. 

210. The cares and troubles of the married 
life are many ; but, are those of the single life 
few ? Take the farmer, and it is nearly the same 
with the tradesman ; but, take the farmer, for in- 
stance, and let him, at the age of twenty-five, go 
into business unmarried. See his maid servants, 
probably rivals for his smiles, but certainly rivals 
in the charitable distribution of his victuals and 
drink amongst those of their own rank : behold 
their guardianship of his pork-tub, his bacon 
rack, his butter, cheese, milk, poultry, eggs, and 
all the rest of it : look at their care of all his 
household stuff, his blankets, sheets, pillow-cases, 
towels, knives and forks, and particularly of his 
crockery ware, of which last they will hardly ex- 
ceed a single cart-load of broken bits in the year. 
And, how nicely they will get up and take care of 
his linen and other wearing apparel, and always 
have it ready for him without his thinking about 



cobbett's advice [Letter 

it ! If absent at market, or especially at a distant 
fair, how scrupulously they will keep all their 
cronies out of his house, and what special care 
they will take of his cellar, more particularly that 
which holds the strong beer ! And his groceries 
and his spirits and his ivine (for a bachelor can 
afford it), how safe these will all be ! Bachelors 
have not, indeed, any more than married men, a 
security for health ; but if our young farmer be 
sick, there are his couple of maids to take care of 
him, to administer his medicine, and to perform 
for him all other nameless offices, which in such 
a case are required ; and what is more, take care 
of every thing down stairs at the same time, espe- 
cially his desk with the money in it ! Never will 
they, good-humoured girls as they are, scold him 
for coming home too late ; but, on the contrary, 
like him the better for it ; and if he have drunk a 
little too much, so much the better, for then he 
will sleep late in the morning, and when he comes 
out at last, he will find that his men have been 
so hard at work, and that all his animals have 
been taken such good care of ! 

211. Nonsense! a bare glance at the thing 
shows, that a farmer, above all men living, can 
never carry on his affairs with profit without a 
wife, or a mother, or a daughter, or some such 
person 5 and mother and daughter imply matri- 
mony. To be sure, a wife would cause some 
trouble, perhaps, to this young man. There 



IV.] TO A HUSBAND. 

might be the midwife and nurse to gallop after at 
midnight ; there might be, and there ought to be, 
if called for, a little complaining of late hours j 
but, good God ! what are these, and all the other 
troubles that could attend a married life ; what 
are they, compared to the one single circumstance 
of the want of a wife at your bedside during one 
single night of illness ! A nurse ! what is a nurse 
to do for you ? Will she do the things that a 
wife will do ? Will she watch your looks and 
your half-uttered wishes ? Will she use the urgent 
persuasions so often necessary to save life in such 
cases ? Will she, by her acts, convince you that 
it is not a toil, but a delight, to break her rest for 
your sake ? In short, now it is that you find that 
what the women themselves say is strictly true, 
namely, that without wives, men are poor help- 
less mortals. 

212. As to the expense, there is no comparison 
between that of a woman servant and a wife, in 
the house of a farmer or a tradesman. The wages 
of the former is not the expense ; it is the want 
of a common interest with you, and this you Can 
obtain in no one but a wife. But there are the 
children, I, for my part, firmly believe that a 
farmer, married at twenty -five, and having ten 
children during the first ten years, would be 
able to save more money during these years, 
than a bachelor, of the same age, would be able 
to save, on the same farm, in alike space of time, 



cobbett's advice [Letter 

he keeping only one maid servant. One single 
fit of illness, of two months' duration, might 
sweep away more than all the children would cost 
in the whole ten years, to say nothing of the con- 
tinual waste and pillage, and the idleness, going 
on from the first day of the ten years to the last, 

213. Besides, is the money all? What a life 
to lead ! ! No one to talk to without going from 
home, or without getting some one to come to 
you ; no friend to sit and talk to : pleasant 
evenings to pass ! Nobody to share with you your 
sorrows or your pleasures : no soul having a com- 
mon interest with you : all around you taking- 
care of themselves, and no care of you : no one 
to cheer you in moments of depression : to say 
all in a word, no one to love you, and no prospect 
of ever seeing any such one to the end of your 
days. For, as to parents and brethren, if you 
have them, they have other and very different ties ; 
and, however laudable your feelings as son and 
brother, those feelings are of a different charac- 
ter. Then as to gratifications, from which you 
will hardly abstain altogether, are they generally 
of little expense ? and are they attended with no 
trouble, no vexation, no disappointment, no jea- 
lousy even, and are they never followed by shame 
or remorse ? 

214. It does very well in bantering songs, to 
say that the bachelor's life is " devoid of care" 
My observation tells me the contrary, and reason 



IV.] TO A HUSBAND. 

concurs, in this regard, with experience. The 
bachelor has no one on whom he can in all cases 
rely. When he quits his home, he carries with 
him cares that are unknown to the married man. 
If, indeed, like the common soldier, he have 
merely a lodging-place, and a bundle of clothes, 
given in charge to some one, he may be at his 
ease ; but if he possess any thing of a home, he 
is never sure of its safety ; and this uncertainty 
is a great enemy to cheerfulness. And as to 
efficiency in life, how is the bachelor to equal 
the married man ? In the case of farmers and 
tradesmen, the latter have so clearly the advantage 
over the former, that one need hardly insist upon 
the point ; but it is, and must be, the same in all 
the situations of life. To provide for a wife and 
children is the greatest of all possible spurs to 
exertion. Many a man, naturally prone to idle- 
ness, has become active and industrious when he 
saw children growing up about him ; many a dull 
sluggard has become, if not a bright man, at least 
a bustling man, when roused to exertion by his 
love. Dryden's account of the change wrought 
in Cymon, is only a strong case of the kind. 
And, indeed, if a man will not exert himself for 
the sake of a wife and children, he can have no 
exertion in him ; or he must be deaf to all the 
dictates of nature. 

215. Perhaps the world never exhibited a more 
striking proof of the truth of this doctrine than 



cobbett's advice [Letter 

that which is exhibited in me 3 and I am sure that 
every one will say, without any hesitation, that a 
fourth part of the labours I have performed, 
never would have been performed, if I had not 
been a married man. In the first place, they 
could not; for I should, all the early ^part of my 
life, have been rambling and roving about as 
most bachelors are. I should have had no home 
that I cared a straw about, and should have 
wasted the far greater part of my time. The 
great affair of home being settled, having the 
home secured, I had leisure to employ my mind 
on things which it delighted in. I got rid at 
once of all cares, all anxieties, and had only to 
provide for the very moderate wants of that 
home. But the children began to come. They 
sharpened my industry : they spurred me on. 
To be sure, I had other and strong motives : I 
wrote for fame, and was urged forward by ill- 
treatment, and by the desire to triumph over my 
enemies ; but, after all, a very large part of my 
nearly a hundred volumes may be fairly ascribed 
to the wife and children. 

216. I might have done something ; but, per- 
haps, not a thousandth part of what I have done ; 
not even a thousandth part : for the chances are, 
that I, being fond of a military life, should have 
ended my days ten or twenty years ago, in conse- 
quence of wounds, or fatigue, or, more likely, in 
consequence of the persecutions of some haughty 



IV.] TO A HUSBAND. 

and insolent fool, whom nature had formed to 
black my shoes, and whom a system of corrup- 
tion had made my commander. Love came and 
rescued me from this state of horrible slavery; 
placed the whole of my time at my own disposal ; 
made me as free as air ; removed every restraint 
upon the operations of my mind, naturally dis- 
posed to communicate its thoughts to others; 
and gave me, for my leisure hours, a companion, 
who, though deprived of all opportunity of ac- 
quiring what is called learning, had so much good 
sense, so much useful knowledge, was so inno- 
cent, so just in all her ways, so pure in thought, 
word and deed, so disinterested, so generous, so 
devoted to me and her children, so free from all 
disguise, and, withal, so beautiful and so talkative, 
and in a voice so sweet, so cheering, that I must, 
seeing the health and the capacity which it had 
pleased God to give me, have been a criminal, if 
I had done much less than that which I have 
done ; and I have always said, that, if my 
country feel any gratitude for my labours, that 
gratitude is due to her full as much as to me. 

217. " Care " ! What care have I known ! I 
have been buffeted about by this powerful and 
vindictive Government; i have repeatedly had the 
fruit of my labour snatched away from me by it ; 
but I had a partner that never frowned, that was 
never melancholy, that never was subdued in 
spirit, that never abated a smile, on these occa- 
o2 



cobbett's advice [Letter 

sions, tliat fortified me, and sustained me by her 
courageous example, and that was just as busy 
and as zealous in taking care of the remnant as 
she had been in taking care of the whole ; just 
as cheerful, and just as full of caresses, when 
brought down to a mean hired lodging, as when 
the mistress of a fine country house, with all its 
accompaniments ; and, whether from her words 
or her looks, no one could gather that she regret- 
ted the change. What " cares " have I had, 
then ? What have 1 had worthy of the name of 
"cares"? 

2 1 8. And, how is it now? How is it when the 
sixty-fourth year has come ? And how should 
I have been without this wife and these children ? 
I might have amassed a tolerable heap of money ; 
but what would that have done for me ? It 
might have bought me plenty of professions of 
attachment ; plenty of persons impatient for my 
exit from the world ; but not one single grain of 
sorrow, for any anguish that might have attended 
my approaching end. To me, no being in this 
world appears so wretched as an Old Bachelor. 
Those circumstances, those changes in his per- 
son and in his mind, which, in the husband, in- 
crease rather than diminish the attentions to him, 
produce all the want of feeling attendant on dis- 
gust ; and he beholds, in the conduct of the mer- 
cenary crew that generally surround him, little 
besides an eager desire to profit from that event. 



IV.] TO A HUSBAND, 

the approach of which, nature makes a subject of 
sorrow with him. 

219. Before I quit this part of my work, I 
cannot refrain from offering my opinion with re- 
gard to what is due from husband to wife* 
when the disposal of Ms property comes to be 
thought of. When marriage is an affair settled 
by deeds, contracts, and lawyers, the husband, 
being bound beforehand, has really no will to 
make. Bat where he has a ivill to make, and a 
faithful wife to leave behind him, it is his first 
duty to provide for her future well-being, to the 
utmost of his power. If she brought him no 
money, she brought him her person ; and by de- 
livering that up to him, she established a claim to 
his careful protection of her to the end of her 
life. Some men think, or act as if they thought, 
that, if a wife bring no money, and if the hus- 
band gain money by his business or profession, 
that money is his, and not hers, because she has 
not been doing any of those things for which 
the money has been received. But is this way 
of thinking just ? By the marriage vow, the 
husband endows the wife with all his ivorldly 
goods ; and not a bit too much is this, when she 
is giving him the command and possession of her 
person. But does she not help to acquire t/ie 
money ? Speaking, for instance, of the farmer or 
the merchant, the wife does not, indeed, go to 
plough, or to look after the ploughing and sow* 



cobbett's advice [Letter 

ing ; she does not purchase or sell the stock ; she 
does not go to the fair or the market; but she 
enables him to do all these without injury to his 
affairs at home ; she is the guardian of his pro- 
perty; she preserves what would otherwise be 
lost to him. The barn and the granary, though 
they create nothing, have, in the bringing of food 
to our mouths, as much merit as the fields them- 
selves. The wife does not, indeed, assist in the 
merchant's counting-house ; she does not go 
upon the exchange; she does not even know 
what he is doing ; but she keeps his house in 
order; she rears up his children; she provides a 
scene of suitable resort for his friends ; she insures 
him a constant retreat from the fatigues of his 
affairs ; she makes his home pleasant, and she is 
the guardian of his income. 

220. In both these cases, the wife helps to gain 
the money ; and in cases where there is no gain, 
where the income is by descent, or is fixed, she 
helps to prevent it from being squandered away. 
It is, therefore, as much hers as it is the hus- 
band's ; and though the law gives him, in many 
cases, the power of keeping her share from her, 
no just man will ever avail himself of that 
power. With regard to the tying up of widows 
from marrying again, I will relate what took 
place in a case of this kind, in America. A 
merchant, who had, during his married state, 
risen from poverty to very great riches, and who 



IV.] TO A HUSBANP. 

had, nevertheless, died at about forty years of 
age, left the whole of his property to his wife for 
her life, and at her disposal at her death, pro- 
vided that she did not marry. The consequence 
was, that she took a husband without marrying, 
and, at her death (she having no children), gave 
the whole of the property to the second hus- 
band ! So much for posthumous jealousy ! 

221. Where there are children, indeed^ it is 
the duty of the husband to provide, in certain 
cases, against step -fathers, who are very prone 
not to be the most just and affectionate parents. 
It is an unhappy circumstance, when a dying 
father is compelled to have fears of this sort. 
There is seldom an apology to be offered for a 
mother that will hazard the happiness of her 
children by a second marriage. The law allows 
it, to be sure ; but there is, as Prior says, " some- 
thing beyond the letter of the law." I know 
what ticklish ground I am treading on here ; but, 
though it is as lawful for a woman to take a 
second husband as for a man to take a second 
wife, the cases are different, and widely different, 
in the eye of morality and of reason ; for, as 
adultery in the wife is a greater offence than 
adultery in the husband ; as it is more gross, as 
it includes prostitution; so a second marriage in 
the woman is more gross than in the man, argues 
great deficiency in that delicacy, that innate mo- 
desty, which, after all, is the great charm, the 



cobbett's ad vi ce [Letter 

charm of charms, in the female sex. I do not 
like to hear a man talk of his first ttife, espe- 
cially in the presence of a second ; but to hear 
a woman thus talk of her first husband, has 
never, however beautiful and good she might be, 
failed to sink her in my estimation. I have, in 
such cases, never been able to keep out of my 
mind that concatenation of ideas, which, in spite 
of custom, in spite of the frequency of the oc- 
currence, leave an impression deeply disadvan- 
tageous to the party ; for, after the greatest of 
ingenuity has exhausted itself in the way of apo- 
logy, it comes to this at last, that the person has 
a second time undergone that surrender, to which 
nothing but the most ardent affection, could ever 
reconcile a chaste and delicate woman. 

222. The usual apologies, that " a lone vjoman 
" wants a protector ; that she cannot manage 
" her estate ; that she cannot carry on her busi- 
" ness ; that she wants a home for her children" ; 
all these apologies are not worth a straw ; for 
what is the amount of them ? Why, that she 
surrenders her person to secure these ends ! And 
if we admit the validity of such apologies, are 
we far from apologising for the kept-mistress, 
and even the prostitute ? Nay, the former of 
these may (if she confine herself to one man) 
plead more boldly in her defence ; and even the 
latter may plead that hunger, which knows no 
law, and no decorum, and no delicacy. These 



IV.] TO A HUSBAND. 

unhappy, but justly-reprobated and depised par- 
ties, are allowed no apology at all : though re- 
duced to the begging of their bread, the world 
grants them no excuse. The sentence on them 
is : "You shall suffer every hardship; you shall 
fS submit to hunger and nakedness ; you shall 
"perish by the way-side, rather than you shall 
u surrender your person to the dishonour of 
" the female sew" But can we, without crying 
injustice, pass this sentence upon them, and, at 
the same time hold it to be proper, decorous, and 
delicate, that widows shall surrender their per- 
sons for worldly gain, for the sake of ease, or for 
any consideration whatsoever ? 

223. It is disagreeable to contemplate the 
possibility of cases of separation ; but amongst 
the evils of life, such have occurred, and will 
occur; and the injured parties, while they are 
sure to meet with the pity of all just persons, 
must console themselves that they have not 
merited their fate. In the making one's choice, 
no human foresight or prudence can, in all cases, 
guard against an unhappy result. There is one 
species of husbands to be occasionally met with 
in all countries, meriting particular reprobation^ 
and causing us to lament, that there is no law to 
punish offenders so enormous. There was a man 
in Pennsylvania, apparently a very amiable young 
man, having a good estate of his own, and mar- 
rying a most beautiful woman of his own age, of 
o5 



cobbett's advice [Letter 

rich parents, and of virtue perfectly spotless. He 
very soon took to both gaming and drinking (the 
last being the most fashionable vice of the coun- 
try) ; he neglected his affairs and his family ; in 
about four years spent his estate, and became a 
dependent on his wife's father, together with his 
wife and three children. Even this would have been 
of little consequence, as far as related to expense ; 
but he led the most scandalous life, and was in- 
cessant in his demands of money for the purposes 
of that infamous life. All sorts of means were 
resorted to to reclaim him, and all in vain ; and the 
wretch, availing himself of the pleading of his 
wife's affection, and of his power over the chil- 
dren more especially, continued for ten or twelve 
years to plunder the parents, and to disgrace 
those whom it was his bounden duty to assist in 
making happy. At last, going out in the dark, 
in a boat, and being partly drunk, he went to the 
bottom of the Delaware, and became food for 
otters or fishes, to the great joy of all who knew 
him, excepting only his amiable wife, I can 
form an idea of no baseness equal to this. There 
is more of baseness in this character than in that 
of the robber. The man who obtains the means 
of indulging in vice, by robbery, exposes himself 
to the inflictions of the law ; but though he 
merits punishment, he merits it less than the 
base miscreant who obtains his means by his 
threats to disgrace his own wife, children, and 



IV.] TO A HUSBAND. 

the wife s parents. The short way in such a case, 
is the best ; set the wretch at defiance ; resort 
to the strong arm of the law wherever it will 
avail you ; drive him from your house like a mad 
dog ; for, be assured, that a being so base and 
cruel is never to be reclaimed : all your efforts at 
persuasion are useless ; his promises and vows 
are made but to be broken ; all your endeavours 
to keep the thing from the knowledge of the 
world, only prolong his plundering of you ; and 
many a tender father and mother have been 
ruined by such endeavours ; the whole story must 
come out at last, and it is better to come out 
before you be ruined, than after your ruin is com- 
pleted. 

224. However, let me hope, that those who read 
this work will always be secure against evils like 
these; let me hope, that the young men who read 
it will abstain from those vices which lead to such 
fatal results ; that they will, before they utter the 
marriage vow, duly reflect on the great duties 
that that vow imposes on them 3 that they will 
repel, from the outset, every temptation to any 
thing tending to give pain to the defenceless per* 
sons whose love for them have placed them at 
their mercy; and that they will imprint on their 
own minds this truth, that a bad husband wag 
never yet a happy man. 



LETTER V. 

TO A FATHER. 



225. "Little children/' says the Scripture, 
" are like arrows in the hands of the giant, and 
" blessed is the man that hath his quiver full of 
M them" ; a beautiful figure to describe, in 
forcible terms, the support, the power, which a 
father derives from being surrounded by a fa- 
mily. And what father, thus blessed, is there 
who does not feel, in this sort of support, a 
reliance which he feels in no other ? In regard 
to this sort of support there is no uncertainty, 
no doubts, no misgivings ; it is yourself that 
you see in your children : their bosoms are the 
safe repository of even the whispers of your 
mind: they are the great and unspeakable de- 
light of your youth, the pride of your prime of 
life, and the props of your old age. They proceed 
from that love, the pleasures of which no tongue 
or pen can adequately describe, and the various 
blessings which they bring are equally incapable 
of description, 

226. But, to make them blessings, you must 
act your part well 5 for they may, by your 



TO A FATHER. 

neglect, your ill-treatment, your evil example, 
be made to be the contrary of blessings ; in- 
stead of pleasure, they may bring you pain; 
instead of making your heart glad, the sight of 
them may make it sorrowful; instead of being 
the staff of your old age, they may bring your 
gray hairs in grief to the grave. 

227. It is, therefore, of the greatest import- 
ance, that you here act well your part, omitting 
nothing, even from the very beginning, tending 
to give you great and unceasing influence over 
their minds ; and, above all things, to ensure, if 
possible, an ardent love of their mother. Your 
first duty towards them is resolutely to prevent 
their drawing the means of life from any breast 
but hers. That is their own; it is their birth- 
right; and if that fail from any natural cause, 
the place of it ought to be supplied by those 
means which are frequently resorted to without 
employing a hireling breast. I am aware of the 
too'frequent practice of the contrary ; I am well 
aware of the offence which I shall here give to 
many ; but it is for me to do my duty, and to 
set, with regard to myself, consequences at 
defiance. 

228. In the first place, no food is so congenial 
to the child as the milk of its own mother; its 
quality is made by nature to suit the age of the 
child ; it comes with the child, and is calculated 
precisely for its stomach, And, then, what sort 



cobbett's advicb [Letter 

of a mother must that be who can endure the 
thought of seeing her child at another breast ! 
The suckling may be attended with great pain, 
and it is so attended in many cases ; but this 
pain is a necessary consequence of pleasures 
foregone ; and, besides, it has its accompanying 
pleasures too. No mother ever suffered more 
than my wife did from suckling her children. 
How many times have I seen her, when the child 
was beginning to draw, bite her lips while the 
tears ran down her cheeks ! Yet, having endured 
this, the smiles came and dried up the tears ; 
and the little thing that had caused the pain 
received abundant kisses as its punishment. 

229. Why, now, did I not love her the more 
for this ? Did not this tend to rivet her to my 
heart? She was enduring this for me; and 
would not this endearing thought have been 
wanting, if I had seen the baby at a breast that 
I had hired and paid for ; if I had had two 
tvomen, one to bear the child and another to give 
it milk ? Of all the sights that this world 
affords, the most delightful in my eyes, even to 
an unconcerned spectator, is, a mother with her 
clean and fat baby lugging at her breast, leav- 
ing off now-and-then and smiling, and she, occa- 
sionally, half smothering it with kisses. What 
must that sight be, then, to the father of the 
child? 

230. Besides, are we to overlook the great and 



V.] TO A FATHER. 

wonderful effect that this has on the minds of 
children ? As they succeed each other, they 
see with their own eyes, the pain, the care, the 
caresses, which their mother has endured for, 
or bestowed, on them ; and nature bids them 
love her accordingly. To love her ardently be- 
comes part of their very nature ; and when the 
time comes that her advice to them is necessary 
as a guide for their conduct, this deep and early 
impression has all its natural weight, which must 
be wholly wanting if the child be banished to a 
hireling breast, and only brought at times into 
the presence of the mother, who is, in fact, no 
mother, or, at least, but half a one. The chil- 
dren who are thus banished, love {as is natural 
and just) the foster-mother better than the real 
mother as long as they are at the breast. When 
this ceases, they are taught to love their own 
mother most ; but this teaching is of a cold and 
formal kind. They may, and generally do, in a 
short time, care little about the foster-mother ; 
the teaching weans all their affection from her, 
but it does not transfer it to the other. 

23 1 . I had the pleasure to know, in Hampshire, 
a lady who had brought up a family of ten children 
by hand, as they call it. Owing to some defect, 
she could not suckle her children 5 but she 
wisely and heroically resolved, that her children 
should hang upon no other breast, and that she 
would not participate in the crime of robbing 



cobbett's advice [Letter 

another child of its birthright, and, as is mostly 
the case, of its life. Who has not seen these 
banished children, when brought and put into 
the arms of their mothers, screaming to get from 
them, and stretch out their little hands to get 
back into the arms of the nurse, and when safely- 
got there, hugging the hireling as if her bosom 
were a place of refuge ? Why, such a sight is, 
one would think, enough to strike a mother dead. 
And what sort of a husband and father, I want 
to know, must that be, who can endure the 
thought of his child loving another woman more 
than its own mother and his wife ? 

232. And besides all these considerations, is 
there no crime in robbing the child of the nurse, 
and in exposing it to perish ? It will not do to 
say that the child of the nurse may be dead, and 
thereby leave her breast for the use of some 
other. Such cases must happen too seldom to 
be at all relied on 5 and, indeed, every one must 
see, that, generally speaking, there must be a 
child cast off for every one that is put to a hire- 
ling breast. Now, without supposing it possible, 
that the hireling will, in any case, contrive to get 
rid of her own child, every man who employs 
such hireling, must know, that he is exposing 
such child to destruction ; that he is assisting to 
rob it of the means of life ; and, of course, assist- 
ing to procure its death, as completely as a man 
can, in any case, assist in causing death by star- 



V.] TO A FATHER. 

vation ; a consideration which will make every 
just man in the world recoil at the thought of 
employing a hireling breast. For he is not to 
think of pacifying his conscience by saying, that 
he knows nothing about the hireling's child. He 
does know; for he must know, that she has a 
child, and that he is a principal in robbing it of 
the means of life. He does not cast it off and 
leave it to perish himself, but he causes the thing 
to be done ; and to all intents and purposes, he 
is a principal in the cruel and cowardly crime. 

233. And if an argument could possibly be 
yet wanting to the husband; if his feelings were 
so stiff as still to remain unmoved, must not the 
wife be aware that whatever face the world may 
put upon it, however custom may seem to bear 
her out; must she not be aware that every one 
must see the main motive which induces her to 
banish from her arms that which has formed part 
of her own body ? All the pretences about her 
sore breasts and her want of strength are vain : 
nature says that she is to endure the pains as 
well as the pleasures : whoever has heard the 
bleating of the ewe for her lamb, and has seen 
her reconciled, or at least pacified, by having 
presented to her the skin or some of the blood of 
her dead lamb : whoever has witnessed the diffi- 
culty of inducing either ewe or cow to give her 
milk to an alien young one : whoever has seen 
the valour of the timid hen in defending her 



cobbett's advice [Letter 

brood, and has observed that she never swallows 
a morsel that is fit for her young, until they be 
amply satisfied : whoever has seen the wild 
birds, though, at other times, shunning even the 
distant approach of man, flying and screaming 
round his head, and exposing themselves to al- 
most certain death in defence of their nests : 
whoever has seen these things, or any one of them 
must question the motive that can induce a mo- 
ther to banish a child from her own breast to 
that of one who has already been so unnatural 
as to banish hers. And, in seeking for a motive 
sufficiently powerful to lead to such an act, 
women must excuse men, if they be not satisfied 
with the ordinary pretences ; they must excuse 
me, at any rate, if I do not stop even at love of 
ease and want of maternal affection, and if I ex- 
press my fear, that, superadded to the unjusti- 
fiable motives, there is one which is calculated to 
excite disgust; namely, a desire to be quickly 
freed from that restraint which the child imposes, 
and to hasten back, unbridled and undisfigured, to 
those enjoyments, to have an eagerness for which, 
or to wish to excite a desire for which, a really 
delicate woman will shudder at the thought of 
being suspected. 

234. I am well aware of the hostility that I 
have here been exciting ; but there is another, 
and still more furious, bull to take by the horns, 
and which would have been encountered some 



V.] TO A FATHER. 

pages back (that being the proper place), had I 
not hesitated between my duty and my desire to 
avoid giving offence \ I mean the employing of 
male- operators, on those occasions where females 
used to be employed. And here I have every 
thing against me ; the now general custom, even 
amongst the most chaste and delicate women ; 
the ridicule continually cast on old midwives ; 
the interest of a profession, for the members of 
which I entertain more respect and regard than 
for those of any other ; and, above all the rest, 
my own example to the contrary, and my know- 
ledge that every husband has the same apology 
that I had. But because I acted wrong myself, 
it is not less, but rather more, my duty to endea- 
vour to dissuade others from doing the same. 
My wife had suffered very severely with her 
second child, which, at last, was still-born. 
The next time I pleaded for the doctor ; and, 
after every argument that I could think of, ob- 
tained a reluctant consent. Her life was so dear 
to me, that every thing else appeared as nothing. 
Every husband has the same apology to make ; 
and thus, from the good, and not from the bad, 
feelings of men, the practice has become far too 
general, for me to hope even to narrow it ; but, 
nevertheless, I cannot refrain from giving my 
opinion on the subject. 

235* We are apt to talk in a very unceremo- 
nious style of our rude ancestors, of their gross 



cobbett's advice [Letter 

habits, their want of delicacy in their language. 
No man shall ever make me believe, that those, 
who reared the cathedral of Ely (which I saw 
the other day), were rude, either in their man- 
ners or in their minds and words. No man shall 
make me believe, that our ancestors were a rude 
and beggarly race, when J read in an act of par- 
liament, passed in the reign of Edward the 
Fourth, regulating the dresses of the different 
ranks of the people, and forbid ding the LABOUR.- 
ERS to wear coats of cloth that cost more than 
hvo shillings a yard (equal to forty shillings of 
our present money), and forbidding their wives 
and daughters to wear sashes, or girdles, trimmed 
ivith gold or silver. No man shall make me be- 
lieve that this was a rude and beggarly race, 
compared with those who now shirk and shiver 
about in canvass frocks and rotten cottons. Nor 
shall any man persuade me that that was a rude 
and beggarly state of things, in which (reign of 
Edward the Third) an act was passed regulating 
the wages of labour, and ordering that a woman, 
for weeding in the com, should receive a penny a 
day, while a quart of red wine was sold for a 
penny, and a pair of men's shoes for two-pence. 
No man shall make me believe that agriculture 
was in a rude state, when an act like this was 
passed, or that our ancestors of that day were 
rude in their minds, or in their thoughts. In- 
deed, there are a thousand proofs, that, whether 



V.] TO A. FATHER. 

in regard to domestic or foreign affairs, whether 
in regard to internal freedom and happiness, or to 
weight in the world, England was at her zenith 
about the reign of Edward the Third. The Re- 
formation, as it is called, gave her a complete pull 
down. She revived again in the reigns of the 
Stuarts, as far as related to internal affairs; but the 
" Glorious Revolution " and its debt and its taxes, 
have, amidst the false glare of new palaces, roads, 
and canals, brought her down until she is become 
the land of domestic misery and of foreign impo- 
tence and contempt ; and, until she, amidst all her 
boasted improvements and refinements, trem- 
blingly awaits her fall. 

236. However, to return from this digression, 
rude and unrefined as our mothers might be, 
plain and unvarnished as they might be in their 
language, accustomed as they might be to call 
things by their names, though they were not so 
very delicate as to use the word small-clothes ; 
and to be quite unable, in speaking of horn- 
cattle, horses, sheep, the canine race, and poultry, 
to designate them by their sexual appellations; 
though they might not absolutely faint at hear- 
ing these appellations used by others ; rude and 
unrefined and indelicate as they might be, they 
did not suffer, in the cases alluded to, the ap- 
proaches of men, which approaches are uncere- 
moniously suffered, and even sought, by their 
polished and refined and delicate daughters j and 



cobbett's advice [Letter 

of unmarried men too, in many cases ; and of 
very young men. 

237. From all antiquity this office was allotted 
to woman. Moses's life was saved by the hu- 
manity of the Egyptian midivife ; and to the 
employment of females in this memorable ease, 
the world is probably indebted for that which has 
been left it by that greatest of all law-givers, 
whose institutes, rude as they were, have been 
the foundation of all the wisest and most just 
laws in all the countries of Europe and America. 
It was the fellow feeling of the midwife for the 
poor mother that saved Moses. And none but a 
mother can, in such cases, feel to the full and 
effectual extent that which the operator ought to 
feel. She has been in the same state herself ; 
she knows more about the matter, except in 
cases of very rare occurrence, than any man, 
however great his learning and experience, can 
ever know. She knows all the previous symp- 
toms; she can judge more correctly than man 
can judge in such a case ; she can put questions 
to the party, which a man cannot put; the com- 
munication between the two is wholly without 
reserve ; the perso?i of the one is given up to the 
other, as completely as her own is under her com- 
mand. This never can be the case with a man- 
operator ; for, after all that can be said or done, 
the native feeling of women, in whatever rank of 
life, will, in these cases, restrain them from say- 



V.] TO A FATHER. 

ing and doing, before a man, even before a 
husband, many things which they ought to 
say and do. So that, perhaps, even with regard 
to the bare question of comparative safety to life, 
the midwife is the preferable person. 

238. But safety to life is not ALL. The pre- 
servation of life is not to be preferred to EVERY 
THING. Ought not a man to prefer death to 
the commission of treason against his country ? 
Ought not a man to die, rather than save his life 
by the prostitution of his wife to a tyrant, who 
insists upon the one or the other ? Every man 
and every woman will answer in the affirmative 
to both these questions. There are, then, cases 
when people ought to submit to certain death. 
Surely, then, the mere chance, the mere possibi- 
lity of it, ought not to outweigh the mighty 
considerations on the other side ; ought not to 
overcome that inborn modesty, that sacred re- 
serve as to their persons, which, as I said before, 
is the charm of charms of the female sex, and 
which our mothers, rude as they are called by us, 
took, we may be satisfied, the bestand most effec- 
tual means of preserving. 

239. But is there, after all, any thing real in 
this greater security for the life of either mother 
or child ? If, then, risk were so great as to call 
upon women to overcome this natural repugnance 
to suffer the approaches of a man, that risk must 
be general ; it must apply to all women; and, 



cobbett's advice [Letter 

further, it must, ever since the creation of man, 
always have so applied. Nov/, resorting to the 
employment of wzm-operators has not been in 
vogue in Europe more than about seventy years, 
and has not been general in England more than 
about thirty or forty years. So that the risk in 
employing midwives must, of late years, have 
become vastly greater than it was even when I 
was a boy, or the whole race must have been ex- 
tinguished long ago. And, then, how puzzled 
we should be to account for the building of all 
the cathedrals, and all the churches, and the 
draining of all the marshes, and all the fens, more 
than a thousand years before the word " accou- 
cheur " ever came from the lips of woman, and 
before the thought came into her mind ? And 
here, even in the use of this word, we have a 
specimen of the refined delicacy of the present 
age ; here we have, varnish the matter over how 
we may, modesty in the word and grossness in 
the thought. Farmers' wives, daughters, and 
maids, cannot now allude to, or hear named, 
without blushing , those affairs of the homestead, 
which they, within my memory, used to talk 
about as freely as of milking or spinning ; but, 
have they become more really modest than their 
mothers were ? Has this refinement made them 
more continent than those rude mothers ? A 
jury at Westminster gave, about six years ago, 
damages to a man, calling himself a gentleman, 



V.] TO A FATHER. 

against a farmer, because the latter, for the pur- 
pose for which such animals are kept, had a bull 
in his yard, on which the windows of the gentle- 
man looked ! The plaintiff alleged, that this 
was so offensive to his wife and daughters, that, if 
the defendant were not compelled to desist, he 
should be obliged to brick up his windows, or to 
quit the house ! If I had been the father of 
these, at once, delicate and curious daughters, 
I would not have been the herald of their purity 
of mind ; and if I had been the suitor of one of 
them, I would have taken care to give up the 
suit with all convenient speed ; for how could I 
reasonably have hoped ever to be able to prevail 
on delicacy, so exquisite, to commit itself to a 
pair of bridal sheets ? In spite, however, of all 
this •* refinement in the human mind," which is 
everlastingly dinned in our ears ; in spite of the 
" small-clothes" and of all theother affected stuff, 
we have this conclusion, this indubitable proof, 
of the falling off in real delicacy ; namely, that 
common prostitutes, formerly unknown, now 
swarm in our towns, and are seldom wanting even 
in our villages ; and where there was one illegi- 
timate child (including those coming before the 
time) only fifty years ago, there are now twenty. 
240. And who can say how far the employment 
of men, in the cases alluded to, may have assisted 
in producing this change, so disgraceful to the 
present age, and so injurious to the female sex ? 



cobbett's advice [Letter 

The prostitution and the swarms of illegitimate 
children have a natural and inevitable tendency 
to lessen that respect, and that kind and indul- 
gent feeling, which is due from all men to vir- 
tuous women. It is well known that the un- 
worthy members of any profession, calling, or 
rank in life, cause, by their acts, the whole body 
to sink in the general esteem ; it is well known, 
that the habitual dishonesty of merchants trading 
abroad, the habitual profligate behaviour of tra- 
vellers from home, the frequent proofs of abject 
submission to tyrants; it is well known, that 
these may give the character of dishonesty, pro- 
fligacy, or cowardice, to a whole nation. There 
are, doubtless, many men in Switzerland, who 
abhor the infamous practices of men selling them- 
selves, by whole regiments, to fight for any foreign 
state that will pay them, no matter in what cause, 
and no matter whether against their own parents 
or brethren ; but the censure falls upon the 
whole nation : and " no money, no Swiss," is a 
proverb throughout the world. It is, amidst 
those scenes of prostitution and bastardy, impos- 
sible for men in general to respect the female 
sex to the degree that they formerly did ; while 
numbers will be apt to adopt the unjust senti- 
ment of the old bachelor, Pope, that " every 
woman is, at heart, a rake." 

241. Who knows, I say, in what degree the 
employment of wim-operators may have tended 



V.] TO A FATHER, 

to produce this change, so injurious to the female 
sex ? Aye, and to encourage unfeeling and bru- 
tal men to propose that the dead bodies of 
females, if poor 9 should be sold for the purpose 
of exhibition and dissection before an audience 
of men ; a proposition that our " rude ancestors" 
would have answered, not by words, but by blows! 
Alas! our women may talk of "small-clothes" 
as long as they please ; they may blush to scarlet 
at hearing animals designated by their sexual ap- 
pellations ; it may, to give the world a proof of 
our excessive modesty and delicacy, even pass a 
law (indeed we have done it) to punish " an expo- 
sure of the person" ; but as long as our streets 
swarm with prostitutes, our asylums and private 
houses with bastards ; as long as we have man- 
operators in the delicate cases alluded to, and as 
long as the exhibiting of the dead body of a vir- 
tuous female before an audience of men shall not 
be punished by the law, and even with death ; as 
long as we shall appear to be satisfied in this 
state of things, it becomes us, at any rate, to be 
silent about purity of mind, improvement of man- 
ners, and an increase of refinement and delicacy. 
242. This practice has brought the " doctor " 
into every family in the kingdom, which is of 
itself no small evil. I am not thinking of the 
expense ; for, in cases like these, nothing in that 
way ought to be spared. If necessary to the 
safety of his wife, a man ought not only to part 
p2 



cobbett's advice [Letter 

with his last shilling, but to pledge his future 
labour. But we all know that there are imagi- 
nary ailments, many of which are absolutely- 
created by the habit of talking with or about the 
"doctor" Read the " Domestic Medicine/' 
and by the time that you have done, you will 
imagine that you have, at times, all the diseases 
of which it treats. This practice has added to* 
has doubled, aye, has augmented, I verily believe, 
tenfold the number of the gentlemen who are, 
in common parlance, called " doctors" ; at which, 
indeed, I, on my own private account, ought to 
rejoice ; for, invariably I have, even in the worst 
of times, found them every where amongst my 
staunches t and kindest friends. But though 
these gentlemen are not to blame for this, any more 
than attorneys are for their increase in number ; 
and amongst these gentlemen, too, I have, with very 
few exceptions, always found sensible men and 
zealous friends ; though the parties pursuing 
these professions are not to blame ; though the 
increase of attorneys has arisen from the endless 
number and the complexity of the laws, and from 
the tenfold mass of crimes caused by poverty 
arising from oppressive taxation ; and though the 
increase of " doctors" has arisen from the diseases 
and the imaginary ailments arising from that 
effeminate luxury which has been created by the 
drawing of wealth from the many, and giving it 
to the few ; and, as the lower classes will always 






V.] TO A FATHER, 

endeavour to imitate the higher, so the u accou^ 
cheur" has, along with the "small-clothes" de- 
scended from the loan-monger's palace down to 
the hovel of the pauper, there to take his fee out 
of the poor-rates \ though these parties are not 
to blame, the thing is not less an evil. Both pro- 
fessions have lost in character, in proportion to 
the increase in the number of its members ; 
peaches, if they grew on hedges, would rank but 
little above the berries of the bramble. 

243. But to return once more to the matter of 
risk of life ; can it be that nature has so ordered it, 
that, as a general thing, the life of either mother 
or child shall be in danger ', even if there were no 
attendant at all ? Can this be ? Certainly it 
cannot : safety must be the rule, and danger the ex- 
ception ; this must be the case, or the world never 
could have been peopled ; and, perhaps, in ninety- 
nine cases out of every hundred, if nature were 
left ivholly to herself, all would be right. The 
great doctor in these cases, is, comforting, consol- 
ing, cheering 'up. And who can perform this 
office like women ? who have for these occasions 
a language and sentiments which seem to have 
been invented for the purpose ; and be they what 
they may as to general demeanour and character, 
they have all, upon these occasions, one common 
feeling, and that so amiable, so excellent, as to 
admit of no adequate description. They com- 
pletely forget, for the time, all rivalships, all 



cobbett's advice [Letter 

squabbles, all animosities, all hatred even ; every 
one feels as if it were her own particular con- 
cern. 

244. These, we may be well assured, are the 
proper attendants on these occasions ; the mo- 
ther, the aunt, the sister, the cousin, and female 
neighbour; these are the suitable attendants, 
having some experienced woman to afford extra- 
ordinary aid, if such be necessary ; and in the 
few cases where the preservation of life demands 
the surgeon's skill, he is always at hand. The 
contrary practice, which we got from the French, 
is not, however, so general in France as in Eng- 
land. We have outstripped all the world in this, 
as we have in every thing which proceeds from 
luxury and effeminacy on the one hand, and from 
poverty on the other 5 the millions have been 
stripped of their means to heap wealth on the 
thousands, and have been corrupted in manners, as 
well as in morals, by vicious examples set them by 
the possessors of that wealth. As reason says 
that the practice of which I complain cannot be 
cured without a total change in society, it would 
be presumption in me to expect such cure from 
any efforts of mine. I therefore must content 
myself with hoping that such change will come, 
and with declaring, that if I had to live my life 
over again, I would act upon the opinions which 
I have thought it my bounden duty here to state 
and endeavour to maintain. 



V.] TO A FATHER* 

245. Having gotten over these thorny places 
as quickly as possible, I gladly come back to the 
Babies; with regard to whom I shall have no 
prejudices, no affectation, no false pride, no 
sham fears to encounter ; every heart (except 
there be one made of flint) being with me here* 
" Then were there brought unto him little chil- 
<c dren, that he should put his hands on them, 
" and pray : and the disciples rebuked them. But 
" Jesus said, Suffer little children, and forbid them 
" not to come unto me ; for of such is the king- 
" dom of heaven." A figure most forcibly ex- 
pressive of the character and beauty of innocence, 
and, at the same time, most aptly illustrative of 
the doctrine of regeneration. And where is the 
man ; the woman who is not fond of babies is 
not worthy the name; but where is the man 
who does not feel his heart softened ; who does 
not feel himself become gentler ; who does not 
lose all the hardness of his temper ; when, in any 
way, for any purpose, or by any body, an appeal 
is made to him in behalf of these so helpless 
and so perfectly innocent little creatures ? 

246. Shakspeare, who is cried up as 
the great interpreter of the human heart, has 
said, that the man in whose soul there is no 
music, or^ love of music, is "fit for murders, trea- 
sons, stratagems, and spoils." "Our immortal 
bard," as the profligate Sheridan used to call 
him in public, while he laughed at him in private; 



cobbett's advi ce [Letter 

our " immortal bard ? seems to have forgotten 
that Shadrach, Meshaeh, and Abednego, were 
flung into the fiery furnace (made seven times 
hotter than usual) amidst the sound of the cor- 
net, flute, harp, sackbut, and dulcimer, and all 
kinds of music ; he seems to have forgotten that 
it was a music and a dance-loving damsel that 
chose, as a recompense for her elegant perform- 
ance, the bloody head of John the Baptist, 
brought to her in a charger ; he seems to have 
forgotten that, while Rome burned, Nero fiddled : 
he did not know, perhaps, that cannibals always 
dance and sing while their victims are roasting • 
but he might have known, and he must have 
known, that England's greatest tyrant, Henry 
VIII., had, as his agent in blood, Thomas Crom- 
well, expressed it, " his sweet soul enwrapped in 
the celestial sounds of music ;" and this was 
just at the time when the ferocious tyrant was 
ordering Catholics and Protestants to be tied back 
to back on the same hurdle, dragged toSmithfield 
on that hurdle, and there tied to, and burnt from, 
the same stake. Shakspeare must have known 
these things, for he lived immediately after their 
date ; and if he had lived in our day, he would 
have seen instances enough of " sweet souls " 
enwrapped in the same manner, and capable, 
if not of deeds equally bloody, of others, disco- 
vering a total want of feeling for sufferings not 
unfrequently occasioned by their own wanton 



V.] TO A FATHER. 

waste, and waste arising, too, in part, from their 
taste for these "celestial sounds." 

247. O no ! the heart of man is not to be 
known by this test : a great fondness for music 
is a mark of great weakness, great vacuity of 
mind : not of hardness of heart ; not of vice ; not 
of downright folly ; but of a want of capacity, 
or inclination, for sober thought. This is not 
always the case : accidental circumstances almost 
force the taste upon people : but, generally speak- 
ing, it is a preference of sound to sense. But 
the man, and especially the father, who is not 
fond of babies f who does not feel his heart soft- 
ened when he touches their almost boneless 
limbs; when he sees their little eyes first begin 
to discern ; when he hears their tender accents ; 
the man whose heart does not beat truly to this 
test, is, to say the best of him, an object of com- 
passion. 

248. But the mother's feelings are here to be 
thought of too ; for, of all gratifications, the very 
greatest that a mother can receive, is notice taken 
of, and praise bestowed on, her baby. The mo- 
ment that gets into her arms, every thing else 
diminishes in value, the father only excepted. 
Her own personal charms, notwithstanding all 
that men say and have written on the subject, 
become, at most, a secondary object as soon as 
the baby arrives. A saying of the old, profligate 
King of Prussia is frequently quoted in .proof of, 

q2 



cobbett's advice [Letter 

the truth of the maxim, that a woman will 
forgive any thing but calling her ugly ; a very 
true maxim, perhaps, as applied to prostitutes, 
whether in high or low life ; but a pretty long 
life of observation has told me, that a mother, 
worthy of the name, will care little about what 
you say of her person, so that you will but extol 
the beauty of her baby. Her baby is always the 
very prettiest that ever was born ! It is always 
an eighth wonder of the world ! And thus it 
ought to be, or there would be a want of that 
wondrous attachment to it which is necessary to 
bear her up through all those cares and pains 
and toils inseparable from the preservation of its 
life and health. 

249. It is, however, of the part which the 
husband has to act, in participating in these 
cares and toils, that I am now to speak. Let no 
man imagine that the world will despise him 
for helping to take care of his own child: 
thoughtless fools may attempt to ridicule ; the 
unfeeling few may join in the attempt; but all, 
whose good opinion is worth having, will applaud 
his conduct, and will, in many cases, be dis- 
posed to repose confidence in him on that very 
account. To say of a man, that he is fond of his 
family, is, of itself, to say that, in private life at 
least, he is a good and trust- worthy man ; aye, 
and in public life too, pretty much ; for it is no 
easy matter to separate the two characters 5 and 



V.] TO A FATHER, 

it is naturally concluded, that he who has been 
flagrantly wanting in feeling for his own flesh 
and blood, will not be very sensitive towards the 
rest of mankind. There is nothing more amiable, 
nothing more delightful to behold, than a young 
man especially taking part in the work of nursing 
the children ; and how often have I admired this 
in the labouring men in Hampshire ! It is, in- 
deed, generally the same all over England; and 
as to America, it would be deemed brutal for a 
man not to take his full share of these cares and 
labours. 

250. The man who is to gain a living by his 
labour, must be drawn away from home, or, at 
least, from the cradle-side, in order to perform 
that labour j but this will not, if he be made of 
good stuff, prevent him from doing his share of 
the duty due to his children. There are still 
many hours in the twenty-four, that he will have 
to spare for this duty ; and there ought to be no 
toils, no watchings, no breaking of rest, imposed 
by this duty, of which he ought not to perform 
his full share, and that, too, without grudging. 
This is strictly due from him in payment' for the 
pleasures of the marriage state. What right has 
he to the sole possession of a woman's person ; 
what right to a husband's vast authority ; what 
right to the honourable title and the boundless 
power of father : what right has he to all, or 
any of these, unless he can found his claim on the 



cobbett's advice [Letter 

faithful performance of all the duties which these 
titles imply ? 

251. One great source of the unhappiness 
amongst mankind arises, however, from a neglect 
of these duties ; but, as if by way of compensation 
for their privations, they are much more duly 
performed by the poor than by the rich. The 
fashion of the labouring people is this : the hus- 
band, when free from his toil in the fields, takes his 
share in the nursing, which he manifestly looks 
upon as a sort of reward for his labour. How- 
ever distant from his cottage, his heart is always 
at that home towards which he is carried, at 
night, by limbs that feel not their weariness, be- 
ing urged on by a heart anticipating the welcome 
of those who attend him there. Those who 
have, as I so many hundreds of times have, seen 
the labourers in the woodland parts of Hamp- 
shire and Sussex, coming, at night-fall, towards 
their cottage-wickets, laden with fuel for a day or 
two; whoever has seen three or four little crea- 
tures looking out for the father's approach, run- 
ning in to announce the glad tidings, and then 
scampering out to meet him, clinging round his 
knees, or hanging on his skirts 3 whoever has 
witnessed scenes like this, to witness which has 
formed one of the greatest delights of my life, 
will hesitate long before he prefer a life of ease to 
a life of labour ; before he prefer a communica- 
tion with children intercepted by servants and 



V.] TO A FATHER. 

teachers to that communication which is here 
direct, and which admits not of any division 
affection. 

252. Then comes the Sunday ; and, amongst 
all those who keep no servants, a great deal de- 
pends on the manner in which the, father employs 
that day. When there are two or three children, 
or even one child, the first thing, after the break- 
fast (which is late on this day of rest), is to wash 

and dress the child or children. Then, while the 
mother is dressing the dinner, the father, being 
in his Sunday-clothes himself, takes care of the 
child or children. When dinner is over, the 
mother puts on her best ; and then, all go to 
church, or, if that cannot be, whether from dis- 
tance or other cause, all pass the afternoon to- 
gether. This used to be the way of life amongst 
the labouring people ; and from this way of life 
arose the most able and most moral people that 
the world ever saw, until grinding taxation took 
from them the means of obtaining a sufficiency of 
food and of raiment ; plunged the whole, good 
and bad, into one indiscriminate mass, under the 
degrading and hateful name of paupers. 

253. The working man, in whatever line, and 
whether in town or country, who spends his day 
of rest, or any part of it, except in case of abso- 
lute necessity, away from his wife and children, is 
not worthy of the name of father, and is seldom 
worthy of the trust, of any employer. Such ab- 



cobbett's advice [Letter 

sence argues a want of fatherly and of conjugal 
affection, which want is generally duly repaid by 
a similar want in the neglected parties ; and, 
though stern authority may command and enforce 
obedience for a while, the time soon comes when 
it will be set at defiance ; and when such a father, 
having no example, no proofs of love, to plead, 
complains of filial ingratitude, the silent indiffer- 
ence of his neighbours, and which is more poig- 
nant, his own heart, will tell him that his com- 
plaint is unjust. 

254. Thus far with regard to working people; 
but much more necessary is it to inculcate these 
principles in the minds of young men in the mid- 
dle rank of life, and to be more particular, in 
their case, with regard to the care due to very 
young children, for here servants come in \ and 
many are but too prone to think, that when they 
have handed their children over to well-paid and 
able servants, they have done their duty by them, 
than which there can hardly be a more mischiev- 
ous error. The children of the poorer people 
are, in general, much fonder of their parents than 
those of the rich are of theirs : this fondness is 
reciprocal ; and the cause is, that the children of 
the former have, from their very birth, had a 
greater share than those of the latter — of the 
personal attention, and of the never-ceasing en- 
dearments of their parents. 

255. I have before urged upon young married 



V.] TO A. FATHER. 

men, in the middle walks of life, to keep the ser- 
vants out of the house as long as possible ; and 
when they must come at last, when they must be 
had even to assist in taking care of children, let 
them be assistants in the most strict sense of the 
word ; let them not be confided in ; let children 
never be left to them alone ; and the younger the 
child, the more necessary a rigid adherence to 
this rule. I shall be told, perhaps, by some care- 
less father, or some play-haunting mother, that 
female servants are ivomen, and have the tender 
feelings of women. Very true ; and, in general, 
as good and kind in their nature as the mother 
herself. But they are not the mother's of your 
children, and it is not in nature that they should 
have the care and anxiety adequate to the neces- 
sity of the case. Out of the immediate care and 
personal superintendence of one or the other of 
the parents, or of some trusty relation, no young 
child ought to be suffered to be, if there be, at 
whatever sacrifice of ease or of property, any 
possibility of preventing it : because, to insure, if 
possible, the perfect form, the straight limbs, the 
sound body, and the sane mind of your children, 
is the very first of all your duties. To provide 
fortunes for them ; to make provision for their 
future fame ; to give them the learning necessary 
to the calling for which you destine them : all 
these may be duties, and the last is a duty; but 
a duty far greater than, and prior to, all these, is 
q 5 



coj3BEtt's advice [Letter 

the duty of neglecting nothing within your 
power to insure them a sane mind in a sound and 
undeformed body* And, good God ! how many 
are the instances of deformed bodies, of crooked 
limbs, of idiocy, or of deplorable imbecility, pro- 
ceeding solely from young children being left to 
the care of servants ! One would imagine, that 
one single sight of this kind to be seen, or heard 
of, in a whole nation, would be sufficient to deter 
parents from the practice. And what, then, must 
those parents feel, who have brought this life- 
long sorrowing on themselves 1 When once the 
thing is done, to repent is unavailing. And what 
is now the worth of all the ease and all the plea- 
sures, to enjoy which the poor sufferer was aban- 
doned to the care of servants ! 

256. What! can I plead example, then, in 
support of this rigid precept ? Did we, who have 
bred up a family of children, and have had ser- 
vants during the greater part of the time, never 
leave a young child to the care of servants ? 
Never ; no, not for one single hour. Were we, 
then, tied constantly to the house with them ? 
No ; for we sometimes took them out; but one 
or the other of us was always ivith them, until, 
in succession, they were able to take good care 
of themselves ; or until the elder ones were able 
to take care of the younger, and then they some- 
times stood sentinel in our stead. How could 
we visit then ? Why, if both went, we bargained 



V.] TO A FATHER. 

beforehand to take the children with us ; and if 
this were a thing not to be proposed, one of us 
went, and the other stayed at home> th e latter 
being very frequently my lot. From this we 
never once deviated. We cast aside all consi- 
deration of convenience ; all calculations of ex- 
pense; all thoughts of pleasure of every sort. 
And, what could have equalled the reward that 
we have received for our care and for our un- 
shaken resolution in this respect ? 

257. In the rearing of children, there is reso- 
lution wanting as well as tenderness. That 
parent is not tmly affectionate who wants the 
courage to do that which is sure to give the 
child temporary pain. A great deal, in provid- 
ing for the health and strength of children, de- 
pends upon their being duly and daily washed, 
when well, in cold water from head to foot. 
Their cries testify to what a degree they dislike 
this. They squall and kick and twist about at 
a fine rate ; and many mothers, too many, 
neglect this, partly from reluctance to encounter 
the squalling, and partly, and much too often, 
from what I will not call idleness, but to which 
I cannot apply a milder term than neglect. Well 
and duly performed, it is an hour's good tight 
work; for, besides the bodily labour, which is 
not very slight when the child gets to be five or 
six months old, there is the singing to overpower 
the voice of the child. The moment the stripping 



cobbett's advice [Letter 

of the child used to begin, the singing used to 
begin, and the latter never ceased till the former 
had ceased. After having heard this go on with 
all my children, Rousseau taught me the philo- 
sophy of it. I happened, by accident, to look 
into his Emile, and there I found him saying, 
that the nurse subdued the voice of the child and 
made it quiet, by droivning its voice in hers, and 
thereby making it perceive that it could not be 
heard, and that to continue to cry was of no avail. 
6i Here, Nancy," said I, (going to her with the 
book in my hand), " you have been a great phi- 
(C losopher all your life, without either of us 
Cf knowing it," A silent nurse is a poor soul. 
It is a great disadvantage to the child, if the 
mother be of a very silent, placid, quiet turn. 
The singing, the talking to, the tossing and roll- 
ing about, that mothers in general practise, are 
very beneficial to the children : they give them 
exercise, awaken their attention, animate them, 
and rouse them to action. It is very bad to have 
a child even carried about by a dull, inanimate, 
silent servant, who will never talk, sing or chirrup 
to it ; who will but just carry it about, always kept 
in the same attitude, and seeing and hearing no- 
thing to give it life and spirit. It requires nothing 
but a dull creature like this, and the washing and 
dressing left to her, to give a child the rickets, and 
make it, instead of being a strong straight per- 
son, tup-shinned, bow-kneed, or hump-backed ; 



V.] TO A FATHER. 

besides other ailments not visible to the eye, 
By-and-by, when the deformity begins to appear, 
the doctor is called in, but it is too late : the mis- 
chief is done ; and a few months of neglect are 
punished by a life of mortification and sorrow, 
not wholly unaccompanied with shame. 

258. It is, therefore, a very spurious kind of 
tenderness that prevents a mother from doing the 
things which, though disagreeable to the child, 
are so necessary to its lasting well-being. The 
washing daily in the morning is a great thing ; 
cold water winter or summer, and this never left 
to a servant, who has not, in such a case, 
either the patience or the courage that is neces- 
sary for the task. When the washing is over, 
and the child dressed in its day-clothes, how 
gay and cheerful it looks ! The exercise gives 
it appetite, and then disposes it to rest; and 
it sucks and sleeps and grows, the delight of 
all eye§, and particularly those of the parents. 
" I can't bear that squalling!" I have heard 
men say ; and to which I answer, that " I can't 
bear such men ! " There are, I thank God, very 
few of them ; for, if they do not always reason 
about the matter, honest nature teaches them to 
be considerate and indulgent towards little crea- 
tures so innocent and so helpless and so uncon- 
scious of what they do. And the noise: after all, 
why should it disturb a man ? He knows the 
exact cause of it : he knows that it is the una- 



cobbett's advice [Letter 

voidable consequence of a great good to his child, 
and of course to him : it lasts but an hour, and 
the recompense instantly comes in the looks of 
the rosy child, and in the new hopes which every 
look excites. It never disturbed me, and my oc- 
cupation was one of those most liable to dis- 
turbance by noise. Many a score papers have I 
written amidst the noise of children, and in my 
whole life never bade them be still. When 
they grew up to be big enough to gallop about 
the house, I have, in wet weather, when they 
could not go out, written the whole day amidst 
noise that would have made some authors half 
mad. It never annoyed me at all. But a Scotch 
piper, whoirTan old lady, who lived beside us at 
Brompton, used to pay to come and play a long 
tune every day, I was obliged to bribe into a 
breach of contract. That which you are pleased 
withy however noisy, does not disturb you. That 
which is indifferent to you has not more effect. 
The rattle of coaches, the clapper of a mill, the 
fall of water, leave your mind undisturbed. But 
the sound of the pipe, awakening the idea of 
the lazy life of the piper, better paid than the 
labouring man, drew the mind aside from its 
pursuit ; and, as it really was a nuisance, occa- 
sioned by the money of my neighbour, I thought 
myself justified in abating it by the same sort of 
means. 

259, The cradle is in poor families necessary; 



V.] TO A FATHER. 

because necessity compels the mother to get as 
much time as she can for her work, and a child 
can rock the cradle. At first we had a cradle ; 
and I rocked the cradle, in great part, during the 
time that I was writing my first work, that fa- 
mous MaItRe d'Anglois, which has long been 
the first book in Europe, as well as in America, 
for teaching of French people the English lan- 
guage. But we left off the use of the cradle as 
soon as possible. It causes sleep more, and of- 
tener, than necessary : it saves trouble j but to 
take trouble was our duty. After the second 
child, we had no cradle, however difficult at first 
to do without it. When I was not at my busi- 
ness, it was generally my affair to put the child 
to sleep : sometimes by sitting with it in my 
arms, and sometimes by lying down on a bed 
with it, till it fell asleep. We soon found the 
good of this method. The children did not sleep 
so much, but they slept more soundly. The cra- 
dle produces a sort of dosing, or dreaming sleep. 
This is a matter of great importance, as every 
thing must be that has any influence on the 
health of children. The poor must use the cra- 
dle, at least until they have other children big 
enough to hold the baby, and to put it to sleep ; 
and it is truly wonderful at how early an age 
they, either girls or boys, will do this business 
faithfully and well. You see them in the lanes, 
and on the skirts of woods and commons, lug- 



cobbett's advice [Letter 

ging a baby about, when it sometimes weighs 
half as much as the nurse* The poor mother 
is frequently compelled, in order to help to get 
bread for her children, to go to a distance from 
home, and leave the group, baby and all, to take 
care of the house and of themselves, the eldest 
of four or five, not, perhaps, above six or seven 
years old ; and it is quite surprising, that, con- 
sidering the millions of instances in s which this 
is done in England, in the course of a year, so 
very, very few accidents or injuries arise from the 
practice ; and not a hundredth part so many as 
arise in the comparatively few instances in which 
children are left to the care of servants. In 
summer time you see these little groups rolling 
about up the green, or amongst the heath, not 
far from the cottage, and at a mile, perhaps, 
from any other dwelling, the dog their only pro- 
tector. And what fine and straight and healthy 
and fearless and acute persons they become ! It 
used to be remarked in Philadelphia, when I 
lived there, that there was not a single man of 
any eminence, whether doctor, lawyer, merchant, 
trader, or any thing else, that had not been born 
and bred in the country, and of parents in a low 
state of life. Examine London, and you will 
find it much about the same. From this very 
childhood they are from necessity entrusted with 
the care of something valuable. They practi- 
cally learn to think, and to calculate as to con- 



V.] TO A FATHER. 

sequences. They are thus taught to remember 
things ; and it is quite surprising what memories 
they have, and how scrupulously a little carter- 
boy will deliver half-a-dozen messages, each of a 
different purport from the rest, to as many per- 
sons, all the messages committed to him at one 
and the same time, and he not knowing one 
letter of the alphabet from another. When I 
want to remember something, and am out in the 
field, and cannot write it down, I say to one of 
the men, or boys, come to me at such a time, 
and tell me so and so. He is sure to do it ; and 
I therefore look upon the memorandum as writ- 
ten down. One of these children, boy or girl, 
is much more worthy of being entrusted with the 
care of a baby, any body's baby, than a servant- 
maid with curled locks and with eyes rolling 
about for admirers. The locks and the rolling 
eyes, very nice, and, for aught I know, very pro- 
per things in themselves 5 but incompatible with 
the care of your baby, Ma'am ; her mind being 
absorbed in contemplating the interesting cir- 
cumstances which are to precede her having a 
sweet baby of her own ; and a sweeter than 
yours, if you please, Ma'am ; or, at least, such 
will be her anticipations. And this is all right 
enough 3 it is natural that she should think and 
feel thus ; and knowing this, you are admonished 
that it is your bounden duty not to delegate this 
sacred trust to any body, 



cobbett's advice [Letter 

260. The courage, of which I have spoken, so 
necessary in the case of washing the children in 
spite of their screaming remonstrances, is, if pos- 
sible, more necessary in cases of illness, requiring 
the application of medicine, or of surgical means 
of cure. Here the heart is put to the test ixi- 
deed ! Here is anguish to be endured by a mother, 
who has to force down the nauseous physic, or 
to apply the tormenting plaster ! Yet it is the 
mother, or the father, and more properly the for- 
mer, who is to perform this duty of exquisite pain. 
To no nurse, to no hireling, to no alien hand, 
ought, if possible to avoid it, this task to be com- 
mitted. I do not admire those mothers who are 
too tender-hearted to inflict this pain on their 
children, and who, therefore, leave it to be in- 
flicted by others. Give me the mother who, 
while the tears stream down her face, has the re- 
solution scrupulously to execute, with her own 
hands, the doctor's commands. Will a servant, 
will any hireling, do this ? Committed to such 
hands, the least trouble will be preferred to the 
greater : the thing will, in general, not be half 
done ; and if done, the suffering from such hands 
is far greater in the mind of the child than if it 
came from the hands of the mother.. In this 
case, above all others, there ought to be no dele- 
gation of the parental office. Here life or limb 
is at stake ; and the parent, man or woman, 
who, in any one point, can neglect his or her duty 






V.] TO A FATHER. 

here, is unworthy of the name of parent. And 
here, as in all the other instances, where goodness 
in the parents towards the children gives such 
weight to their advice when the children grow up, 
what a motive to filial gratitude ! The children 
who are old enough to deserve and remember, 
will witness this proof of love and self-devotion 
in their mother. Each of them feels that she 
has done the same towards them all ; and they 
love her and admire and revere her accordingly. 

261. This is the place to state my opinions, and 
the result of my experience, with regard to that 
fearful disease the Small-Pox; a subject, too, 
to which I have paid great attention. I was 
always, from the very first mention of the thing, 
opposed to the Cow- Pox scheme. If efficacious 
in preventing the Small-Pox, I objected to it 
merely on the score of its beastliness. There are 
some things, surely, more hideous than death, 
and more resolutely to be avoided ; at any rate, 
more to be avoided than the mere risk of suffering 
death. And, amongst other things, I always 
reckoned that of a parent causing the blood, and 
the diseased blood too, of a beast to be put into 
the veins of human beings, and those beings the 
children of that parent. I, therefore, as will be 
seen in the pages of the Register of that day, 
most strenuously opposed the giving of twenty 
thousand pounds to Jenner out of the taxes, 
paid in great part by the working people, which 



cobbett's advice [Letter 

I deemed and asserted to be a scandalous waste 
of the public money. 

262. I contended, that this beastly application 
could not, in nature, be efficacious in preventing 
the Small-Pox ; and that, even if efficacious for 
that purpose, it ivas ivholly unnecessary. The 
truth of the former of these assertions has now 
been proved in thousands upon thousands of in- 
stances. For a long time, for ten years, the con- 
trary was boldly and brazenly asserted. This na- 
tion is fond of quackery of all sorts; and this par- 
ticular quackery having been sanctioned by King, 
Lords and Commons, it spread over the coun- 
try like a pestilence borne by the winds. Speedily 
sprang up the " ROYAL Jennerian Institution" 
and Branch Institutions, issuing from the parent 
trunk, set instantly to work, impregnating the 
veins of the rising and enlightened generation 
with the beastly matter. " Gentlemen and La- 
dies" made the commodity a pocket-companion j 
and if a cottager's child (in Hampshire at least), 
even seen by them, on a common, were not 
pretty quick in taking to its heels, it had to carry 
off more or less of the disease of the cow. One 
would have thought, that one-half of the cows in 
England must have been tapped to get at such a 
quantity of the stuff. 

263. In the midst of all this mad work, to 
which the doctors, after having found it in vain 
to resist, had yielded, the real small~po%, in its 



V.] TO A FATHER. 

worst form, broke out in the town of Ringwood,- 
in Hampshire, and carried off, I believe (I have 
not the account at hand), more than a hundred 
persons, young and old, every one of whom had- 
had the cow-pox "so nicely! " And what was now 
said ? Was the quackery exploded, and were the 
grantersof the twenty thousand pounds ashamed of 
what they had done ? Not at all : the failure was 
imputed to unskilful operators ; to the stateness 
of the matter : to its not being of the genuine 
quality. Admitting all this, the scheme stood 
condemned ; for the great advantages held forth 
were, that any body might perform the operation, 
and that the matter was every where abundant 
and cost-free. But these were paltry excuses ; 
the mere shuffles of quackery; for what do we 
know now ? Why, that in hundreds of instances, 
persons cow-poxed by JENNER HIMSELF, 
have taken the real small-pox afterwards, and 
have either died from the disorder, or narrowly 
escaped with their lives ! I will mention two 
instances, the parties concerned being living and 
well-known, one of them to the whole nation, and 
the other to a very numerous circle in the higher 
walks of life. The first is Sir Richard Phil- 
lips, so well known by his able writings, and 
equally well known by his exemplary conduct 
as Sheriff of London, and by his life-long 
labours in the cause of real charity and human- 
ity. Sir Richard had, I think, two sons, whose 



cobbett's advice [Letter 

veins were impregnated by the grantee himself. 
At any rate he had one, who had, several years 
after Jenner had given him the insuring matter, 
a very hard struggle for his life, under the hands 
of the good, old-fashioned, seam-giving, and 
dimple-dipping small-pox. The second is Philip 
Codd, Esq., formerly of Kensingston, and now 
of Rumstecl Court, near Maidstone, in Kent, 
who has a son that had a very narrow escape 
under the real small-pox, about four years ago, 
and who also had been cow-poxed by Jenner 
himself. This last-mentioned gentleman I have 
known, and most sincerely respected, from the 
time of our both being about eighteen years of 
age. When the young gentleman, of whom I 
am now speaking, was very young, I having him 
upon my knee one day, asked his kind and ex- 
cellent mother, whether he had been inoculated. 
iC Oh, no !" said she, " we are going to have him 
vaccinated" Whereupon I, going into the gar- 
den to the father, said, " I do hope, Codd, that 
you are not going to have that beastly cow-stuff 
put into that fine boy." " Why/' said he, " you 
see, Cobbett, it is to be done by Jenner himself'' 
What answer I gave, what names and epithets I 
bestowed upon Jenner and his quackery, I will 
leave the reader to imagine. 

264. Now, here are instances enough ; but, every 
reader has heard of, if not seen, scores of others. 
Young Mr. Codd caught the small-pox at a 



V,] TO A FATHER. 

school; and if I recollect rightly, there were 
several other " vaccinated " youths who did the 
same, at the same time. Quackery, however, 
has always a shuffle left. Now that the cow-pox 
has been proved to he no guarantee against the 
small-pox, it makes it "milder" when it comes ! 
A pretty shuffle, indeed, this ! You are to be all 
your life in fear of it, having as your sole con- 
solation, that when it comes (and it may over- 
take you in a camp, or on the seas), it will he 
"milder!" It was not too mild to kill at Ring- 
wood , and its mildness, in the case of young 
Mr. Codd, did not restrain it from blinding him 
for a suitable number of days. 1 shall not easily 
forget the alarm and anxiety of the father and 
mother upon this occasion ; both of them the 
best of parents, and both of them now punished 
for having yielded to this fashionable quackery. 
I will not say, justly punished ; for affection for 
their children, in which respect they were never 
surpassed by any parents on earth, was the cause 
of their listening to the danger-obviating quackery. 
This, too, is the case with other parents; but 
parents should be under the influence of reason 
and experience, as well as under that of affection ; 
and now, at any rate, they ought to set this really 
dangerous quackery at nought. 

265. And, what does my own experience say 
on the other side ? There are my seven children, 
the sons as tall, or nearly so, as their father, and 



cobbett's advice [Letter 

the daughters as tall as their mother; all, in due 
succession, inoculated with the good old-fash- 
ioned face-tearing small-pox; neither of them 
with a single mark of that disease on their skins ; 
neither of them having been, that we could per- 
ceive, ill for a single hour, in consequence of the 
inoculation. When we were in the United 
States, we observed that the Americans were 
never marked with the small-pox; or, if such a 
thing were seen, it was very rarely. The cause we 
found to be, the universal practice of having the 
children inoculated at the breast, and, gene- 
rally, at a month or six iveeks old. When we 
came to have children, we did the same. I be- 
lieve that some of ours have been a few months 
old when the operation has been performed, but 
always while at the breast, and as early as pos- 
sible after the expiration of six weeks from the 
birth ; sometimes put off a little while by some 
slight disorder in the child, or on account of soma 
circumstance or other ; but, with these excep- 
tions, done at, or before, the end of six weeks 
from the birth, and alivays at the breast. All 
is then pure : there is nothing in either body or 
mind to favour the natural fury of the disease. 
We always took particular care about the source 
from which the infectious matter came. We em- 
ployed medical men, in whom we could place 
perfect confidence : we had their solemn word 
for the matter coming from some healthy child $ 



V.] TO A FATHER. 

and, at last, we had sometimes to wait for this, 
the cow-affair having rendered patients of this 
sort rather rare. 

266. While the child has the small-pox, the 
mother should abstain from food and drink, 
which she may require at other times, but which 
might be too gross just now. To suckle a hearty 
child requires good living ; for, besides that this 
is necessary to the mother, it is also necessary to 
the child. A little forbearance, just at this time, 
is prudent 5 making the diet as simple as possi- 
ble, and avoiding all violent agitation either of 
the body or the spirits ; avoiding too, if you can, 
very hot or very cold weather. 

267. There is now, however, this inconveni- 
ence, that the far greater part of the present 
young women have been be-Jennered; so that 
they may catch the beauty-killing disease from 
their babies! To hearten them up, however, 
and more especially, I confess, to record a trait 
of maternal affection and of female heroism, 
which I have never heard of any thing to sur- 
pass, I have the pride to say, that my wife had 
eight childen inoculated at her breast, and never 
had the small-pox in her life, I, at first, ob- 
jected to the inoculating of the child, but she in- 
sisted upon it, and with so much pertinacity that I 
gave way, on condition that she would be inocu- 
lated too. This was done with three or four of 

R 



cqbbett's advice [Letter 

the children, I think, she always being reluctant 
to have it done, saying that it looked like dis- 
trusting the goodness of God. There was, to be 
sure, very little in this argument; but the long 
experience w T ore away the alarm ; and there she 
is now, having had eight children hanging at her 
breast with that desolating disease in them, and 
she never having been affected by it from first to 
last. All her children know, of course, the risk 
hat she voluntarily incurred for them. They all 
have this indubitable proof, that she valued tneir 
lives above her own ; and is it in nature, that 
they should ever wilfully do any thing to wound 
the heart of that mother ; and must not her 
bright example have great effect on their charac- 
ter and conduct ! Now, my opinion is, that 
the far greater part of English or American 
women, if placed in the above circumstances, 
would do just the same thing; and I do hope, 
that those, who have yet to be mothers, will 
•seriously think of putting an end, as they have 
the power to do, to the disgraceful and dangerous 
quackery, the evils of which I have so fully 
proved. 

268. But there is, in the management of 
babies, something besides life, health, strength 
and beauty ; and something too, without which 
all these put together are nothing worth ; and 
that is sanity of mind. There are, owing to 



V.] TO A FATHER. 

various causes, some who are born ideots ; but 
a great many more become insane from the 
misconduct, or neglect, of parents ; and, gene* 
rally, from the children being committed to the 
care of servants. 1 knew, in Pennsylvania, a 
child, as fine, and as sprightly, and as intelligent 
a child as ever was born, made an ideot for life 
by being, when about three years old, shut into a 
dark closet, by a maid servant, in order to terrify 
it into silence. The thoughtless creature first 
menaced it with sending it to u the bad place™ 
as the phrase is there ; and, at last, to reduce it 
to silence, put it into the closet, shut the door, 
and went out of the room. She went back, in a 
few minutes, and found the child in a fit. It re- 
covered from that, but was for life an ideot* 
When the parents, who had been out two days 
and two nights on a visit of pleasure, came home, 
they were told that the child had had afit; but f 
they were not told the cause. The girl, how- 
ever, who was a neighbour's daughter, being on 
her death-bed about ten years afterwards, could 
not die in peace without sending for the mothei 4 
of the child (now become a young man) and ask* 
ing forgiveness of her. The mother herself was, 
however, the greatest offender of the two : a 
whole lifetime of sorrow and of mortification 
was a punishment too light for her and her hus- 
band. Thousands upon thousands of human 
k2 



cobbett's advice [Letter 

beings have been deprived of their senses by 
these and similar means. 

269. It is not long since that we read, in the 
newspapers, of a child being absolutely killed, 
at Birmingham, I think it was, by being thus 
frightened. The parents had gone out into what 
is called an evening party. The servants, na- 
turally enough, had their party at home ; and 
the mistress, who, by some unexpected accident^ 
had been brought home at an early hour, finding 
the parlour full of company, ran up stairs to see 
about her child, about two or three years old. 
She found it with its eyes open, but fixed ; 
touching it, she found it inanimate. The doctor 
was sent for in vain : it was quite dead. The 
maid affected to know nothing of the cause ; 
but some one of the parties assembled discover- 
ed, pinned up to the curtains of the bed, a horrid 
figure, made up partly of a frightful mask ! This, 
as the wretched girl confessed, had been done to 
keep the child quiet, while she was with her 
company below. When one reflects on the an- 
guish that the poor little thing must have en- 
dured, before the life was quite frightened out of 
it, one can find no terms sufficiently strong to 
express the abhorrence due to the perpetrator of 
this crime, which was, in fact, a cruel murder; 
and, if it was beyond the reach of the law, it was 
so and is so, because, as in the cases of parricide,, 



V.] TO A FATHER. 

the law, in making no provision for punishment 
peculiarly severe, has, out of respect to human 
nature, supposed such crimes to be impossible. 
But if the girl was criminal ; if death, or a life 
of remorse, was her due, what was the due of 
her parents, and especially of the mother ! And 
what was the due of the father, who suffered 
that mother, and who, perhaps, tempted her to 
neglect her most sacred duty ! 

2/0. Jf this poor child had been deprived of 
its mental faculties, instead of being deprived of 
its life, the cause would, in all likelihood, never 
have been discovered. The insanity would have 
been ascribed to (t brain-fever" or to some other 
of the usual causes of insanity ; or, as in thou- 
sands upon thousands of instances, to some un- 
accountable cause. When I was, in No. IX., pa- 
ragraphs from 227 to 233, both inclusive, main- 
taining with all my might, the unalienable right 
of the child to the milk of its mother, I omitted, 
amongst the evils arising from banishing the 
child from the mother's breast, to mention, or, 
rather, it had never occurred to me to mention, 
the loss of reason to the poor, innocent creatures, 
thus banished. And now, as connected with 
this measure, I have an argument of experience ', 
enough to terrify every young man and woman 
upon earth from the thought of committing this 
offence against nature. I wrote No. IX. at Cam- 



cobjbett's advice [Letter 

bridgej on Sunday, the 28th of March; and, 
before I quitted Shrewsbury, on the 14th of 
May, the following facts reached my ears, A 
very respectable tradesman, who, with his wife, 
have led a most industrious life, in a town that it 
is not necessary to name, said to a gentleman 
that told it to me : " I wish to God I had read 
u No. IX. of Mr. Cobbett's Advice to Young 
u Men fifteen years ago !" He then related, 
that he had had ten children, all pat out to be 
suckled, in consequence of the necessity of his 
having the mother's assistance to carry on his 
business ; and that itvo out of the ten had come 
home ideots ; though the rest were all sane, and 
though insanity had never been known in the 
family of either father or mother ! These pa- 
rents, whom I myself saw, are very clever people, 
and the wife singularly industrious and expert in 
her affairs. 

271. Now the motive, in this case, unques- 
tionably was good ; it was that the mother's 
valuable time might, as much as possible, be de- 
voted to the earning of a competence for her 
children. But, alas ! what is this competence 
to these two unfortunate beings ! And what is 
the competence to the rest, w 7 hen put in the scale 
against the mortification that they must, all their 
lives, suffer on account of the insanity of their 
brother and sister, exciting, as it must, in all 



V.] TO A FATHER. 

their circle, and even in themselves, suspicions of 
their own perfect soundness of mind ! When 
weighed against this consideration, what is all the 
wealth in the world ! And as to the parents, 
where are they to find compensation for such a 
calamity, embittered additionally, too, by the re- 
flection, that it was in their power to prevent it, 
and that nature, with loud voice, cried out to 
them to prevent it ! Money ! Wealth acquired 
in consequence of this banishment of these poor 
children ; these victims of this, I will not call it 
avarice, but over-eager love of gain ! wealth, 
thus acquired ! What wealth can console these 
parents for the loss of reason in these children ! 
Where is the father and the mother, who would 
not rather see their children ploughing in other 
men's fields, and sweeping other men's houses, 
than led about parks or houses of their own, 
objects of pity even of the menials procured by 
their wealth ? 

272. If what I have now said be not sufficient 
to deter a man from suffering any considera- 
tion, no matter what, to induce him to delegate 
the care of his children, when very young, to any 
body whomsoever, nothing that I can say can pos- 
sibly have that effect ; and I will, therefore, now 
proceed to offer my advice with regard to the ma- 
nagement of children when they get beyond the 
danger of being crazed or killed by nurses or 
servants. 



cobbett's advice [Letter 

273. We here come to the subject o( educa- 
tion in the true sense of that word, which is 
rearing up, seeing that the word comes from the 
Latin educo, which means to breed up, or to 
rear up. I shall, afterwards, have to speak of 
education in the now common acceptation of the 
word, which makes it mean, book-learning. At 
present, I am to speak of education in its true 
sense, as the French (who, as well as we, take 
the work from the Latin) always use it. They, 
in their agricultural works, talk of the " educa- 
tion du Cochon, de TAllouette, &c./' that is of 
the hog, the lark, and so of other animals ; that 
is to say, of the manner of breeding them, or 
rearing them up, from their being little things 
*till they be of full size. 

274. The first thing, in the rearing of children, 
who have passed from the baby-state, is, as to 
the body, plenty of good food ; and, as to the 
mind, constant good example in the parents. Of 
the latter I shall speak more by-and-by. With 
regard to the former, it is of the greatest import- 
ance, that children be well fed ; and there never 
was a greater error than to believe that they do 
not need good food. Every one knows, that to 
have fine horses, the colts must be kept well, and 
that it is the same with regard to all animals of 
every sort and kind. The fine horses and cattle 
and sheep all come from the rich pastures. To 
have them fine, it is not sufficient that thev, have 



V.] TO A FATHER. 

plenty of food when young, but that they have 
rich food. Were there no land, no pasture, in 
England, but such as is found in Middlesex, 
Essex, and Surrey, we should see none of those 
coach-horses and dray-horses, whose height and 
size make us stare. It is the keep ivhen young 
that makes the fine animal. 

275, There is no other reason for the people 
in the American States being generally so much 
taller and stronger than the people in England 
are. Their forefathers went, for the greater 
part, from England. In the four Northern 
States they went wholly from England, and then, 
on their landing, they founded a new London, a 
new Falmouth, a new Plymouth, a new Ports- 
mouth, a new Dover, a new Yarmouth, a new 
Lynn, a new Boston, and a new Hull, and the 
country itself they called, and their descendants 
still call, New England. This country of the 
best and boldest seamen, and of the most moral 
and happy people in the world, is also the coun- 
try of the tallest and ablest-bodied men in the 
world. And why ? Because, from their very 
birth, they have an abundance of good food ; not 
only oifood) but of rich food. Even when the 
child is at the breast, a strip of beef-steak, or 
something of that description, as big and as long 
as one's finger, is put into its hand. When a 
baby gets a thing in its hand, the first thing it 
r5 



cobbett's advice [Letter 

does is to poke some part of it into its mouth. 
It cannot bite the meat, but its gums squeeze out 
the juice. When it has done with the breast, it 
eats meat constantly twice, if not thrice, a day. 
And this abundance of good food is the cause, to 
be sure, of the superior size and strength of the 
people of that country. 

276. Nor is this, in any point of view, an unim- 
portant matter. A tall man is, whether as labourer, 
carpenter, bricklayer, soldier or sailor, or almost 
anything else, worth more than a short man : he 
can look over a higher thing; he can reach 
higher and wider; he can move on from place to 
place faster \ in mowing grass or corn he takes a 
wider swarth, in pitching he wants a shorter 
prong ; in making buildings he does not so soon 
want a ladder or a scaffold ; in fighting he keeps 
his body farther from the point of his sword. 
To be sure, a man may be tall and weak : but, 
this is the exception and not the rule : height and 
weight and strength, in men as in speechless 
animals, generally go together. Aye, and in 
enterprise and courage too, the powers of the 
body have a great deal to do. Doubtless there 
are, have been, and always will be, great num- 
bers of small and enterprizing and brave men ; 
but it is not in nature, that, generally speaking, 
those who are conscious of their inferiority in 
point of bodily strength, should possess the 



V.] TO A FATHER. 

boldness of those who have a contrary descrip- 
tion. 

277. To what but this difference in the size and 
strength of the opposing combatants are we to 
ascribe the ever -to-be-blushed- at events of our 
last war against the United States ! The hearts 
of our seamen and soldiers were as good as those 
of the Yankees : on both sides they had sprung 
from the same stock : on both sides equally well 
supplied with all the materials of war : if on 
either side, the superior skill was on ours : French, 
Dutch, Spaniards, all had confessed our superior 
prowess : yet, when, with our whole undivided 
strength, and to that strength adding the flush and 
pride of victory and conquest, crowned even in the 
capital of France ; when, with all these tremendous 
advantages, and with all the nations of the earth 
looking on, we came foot to foot and yard-arm to 
yard-arm with the Americans, the result was such 
as an English pen refuses to describe. What, 
then, was the great cause of this result, which 
filled us with shame and the world with astonish- 
ment ? Not the want of courage in our men. 
There were, indeed, some moral causes at work ; 
but the main cause was, the great superiority of 
size and of bodily strength on the part of the 
enemy's soldiers and sailors. It was so many 
men on each side; but it was men of a different 
size and strength : and, on the side of the foe^ 



cobbett's advice [Letter 

men accustomed to daring enterprise from a 
consciousness of that strength. 

278. Why are abstinence and fasting enjoined 
by the Catholic Church ? Why, to make men 
humble, meek, and tame ; and they have this 
effect too : this is visible in whole nations as well 
as in individuals. So that good food, and plenty 
of it, is not more necessary to the forming of a 
stout and able body than to the forming of an ac- 
tive and enterprizing spirit. Poor food, short allow- 
ance, while they check the growth of the child's 
body, check also the daring of the mind 3 and, 
therefore, the starving or pinching system ought 
to be avoided by all means. Children should eat 
often, and as much as they like at a time. They 
will, if at full heap, never take, of plain food, 
more than it is good for them to take. They may, 
indeed, be stuffed with cakes and sweet things 
till they be ill, and, indeed, until they bring on 
dangerous disorders : but, of meat plainly and 
well cooked, and of bread, they will never swal- 
low the tenth part of an ounce more than it is 
necessary for them to swallow. Ripe fruit, or 
cooked fruit, if no sweetening take place, will 
never hurt them ; but, when they once get a 
taste for sugary stuff, and to cram down loads of 
garden vegetables 5 when ices, creams, tarts, rai- 
sins, almonds, all the endless pamperings come, 
the doctor must soon follow with his drugs. The 



V.] TO A FATHER. 

blowing out of the bodies of children with tea, 
coffee, soup, or warm liquids of any kind, is very 
bad : these have an effect precisely like that 
which is produced by feeding young rabbits^ or 
pigs, or other young animals upon watery vege- 
tables : it makes them big-bellied and bare- 
boned at the same time ; and it effectually pre- 
vents the frame from becoming strong. Children 
in health want no drink other than skim milk, or 
butter-milk, or whey; and, if none of those be at 
hand, water will do very well, provided they have 
plenty of good meat. Cheese and butter do very 
well for part of the day. Puddings and pies ; 
but always without sugar, which, say what peo- 
ple will about the wholesomeness of it, is not only 
of no use in the rearing of children, but injurious : 
it forces an appetite : like strong drink, it makes 
daily encroachments on the taste : it wheedles 
down that which the stomach does not want : it 
finally produces illness : it is one of the curses of 
the country ; for it, by taking off the bitter of 
the tea and coffee, is the great cause of sending 
down into the stomach those quantities of warm 
water by which the body is debilitated and de^ 
formed and the mind enfeebled. I am address- 
ing myself to persons in the middle walk of life ; 
but no parent can be sure that his child will 
not be compelled to labour hard for its daily 
bread : and then, how vast is the difference be- 



cobbett's advice [Letter 

tween one who has been pampered with sweets 
and one who has been reared on plain food and 
simple drink ! 

279. The next thing after good and plentiful 
and plain food is good air. This is not within the 
reach of every one ; but, to obtain it is worth 
great sacrifices in other respects. We know 
that there are smells which will cause instant 
death; we know, that there are others which 
will cause death in a few years ; and, therefore, 
we know that it is the duty of parents to provide, 
if possible, against this danger to the health of 
their offspring. - To be sure, when a man is so 
situated that he cannot give his children sweet 
air without putting himself into a jail for debt : 
when, ill short, he has the dire choice of sickly 
children, children with big heads, small limbs, 
and ricketty joints : or children sent to the poor- 
liouse : when this is his hard lot, he must decide 
for the former sad alternative : but before he 
will convince me that this is his lot, he must 
prove to me, that he and his wife expend not a 
penny in the decoration of their persons ; that on 
his table, morning, noon, or night, nothing ever 
comes that is not the produce of English soil ; 
that of his time not one hour is wasted in what is 
called pleasure ; that down his throat not one 
drop or morsel ever goes, unless necessary to 
sustain life and health. How many scores and 



V.J TO A FATHER. 

how many hundreds of men have I seen ; how 
many thousands could I go and point out, to- 
morrow, in London, the money expended on 
whose guzzlings in porter, grog and wine, would 
keep, and keep well, in the country, a consider- 
able part of the year, a wife surrounded by 
healthy children, instead of being stewed up in 
some alley, or back room, with a parcel of poor 
creatures about her, whom she, though their fond 
mother, is almost ashamed to call hers ! Com- 
pared with the life of such a woman, that of the 
labourer, however poor, is paradise. Tell me not 
of the necessity of providing money for them, even 
if you waste not a farthing : you can provide 
them with no money equal in value to health 
and straight limbs and good looks : these it is, 
if within your power, your hounden duty to pro- 
vide for them : as to providing them with money, 
you deceive yourself 5 it is your own avarice, or 
vanity, that you are seeking to gratify, and not 
to ensure the good of your children. Their most 
precious possession is health and strength ; and 
you have no right to run the risk of depriving 
them of these for the sake of heaping together 
money to bestow on them : you have the desire 
to see them rich : it is to gratify yourself that 
you act in such a case ; and you, however you 
may deceive yourself, are guilty of injustice to- 
wards them. You would be ashamed to see 



cobbett's advice [Letter 

them tvithout fortune j but not at all ashamed 
to see them without straight limbs, without co- 
lour in their cheeks, without strength, without 
activity, and with only half their due portion of 
reason. 

280. Besides sweet air, children want exercise. 
Even when they are babies in arms, they want 
tossing and pulling about, and want talking and 
singing to. They should be put upon their feet 
by slow degrees, according to the strength of their 
legs ; and this is a matter which a good mother 
will attend to with incessant care. If they ap- 
pear to be likely to squint, she will, always when 
they wake, up, and frequently in the day, take 
care to present some pleasing object right before, 
and never on the side of their face. If they ap- 
pear, when they begin to talk, to indicate a pro- 
pensity to stammer, she will stop them, repeat 
the word or words slowly herself, and get them 
to do the same. These precautions are amongst 
the most sacred of the duties of parents ; for, 
remember,, the deformity is for life ; a thought 
which will fill every good parent's heart with 
solicitude. All sivaddling and tight covering are 
mischievous. They produce distortions of some 
sort or other. To let children creep and roll 
about till they get upon their legs of themselves 
is a very good way. I never saw a native Ame- 
rican with crooked limbs or hump-back, and 






VJ TO A FATHER. 

never heard any man say that he had seen one* 
And the reason is, doubtless, the loose dress in 
which children, from the moment of their birth, 
are kept, the good food that they always have, 
and the sweet air that they breathe in conse- 
quence of the absence of all dread of poverty on 
the part of the parents. 

2S1. As to bodily exercise, they will, when 
they begin to get about, take, if you let them 
alone, just as much of it as nature bids them, 
and no more. That is a pretty deal, indeed, if 
they be in health ; and, it is your duty, now, to 
provide for their taking of that exercise, when they 
begin to be what are called boys and girls, in a way 
that shall tend to give them the greatest degree of 
pleasure, accompanied with the smallest risk of 
pain : in other words, to make their lives as plea-' 
*sant as you possibly can. I have always admired 
the sentiment of Rousseau upon this subject. 
"The boy dies, perhaps, at the age of ten or 
<c twelve. Of what use, then, all the restraints, all 
a the privations, all the pain, that you have in- 
" flicted upon him ? He falls, and leaves your mind 
" to brood over the possibility of your having 
" abridged a life so dear to you," I do not re- 
collect the very words ; but the passage made a 
deep impression upon my mind, just at the time, 
too, when I was about to become a father ; and 
I was resolved never to bring upon myself re- 



cobbett's advice [Letter 

morse from such a cause ; a resolution from 
which no importunities, coming from what quar- 
ter they might, ever induced me, in one single in- 
stance, or for one single moment, to depart. I 
was resolved to forego all the means of making 
money, all the means of living in any thing like 
fashion, ail the means of obtaining fame or dis- 
tinction, to give up every thing, to become a com- 
mon labourer, rather than make my children 
lead a life of restraint and rebuke ; I could not 
be sure that my children would love me as they 
loved their own lives ; but I was, at any rate, 
resolved to deserve such love at their hands ; 
and, in possession of that, I felt that I could set 
calamity, of whatever description, at defiance. 

282. Now, proceeding to relate what was, in this 
respect, my line of conduct, I am not pretending 
that every man, and particularly every man living 
in a town, can, in all respects, do as I did in the 
rearing up of children. But, in many respects, 
any man may, whatever may be his state of life. 
For I did not lead an idle life ; I had to work 
constantly for the means of living; my occupa- 
tion required unremitted attention ; I had no- 
thing but my labour to rely on ; and I had no 
friend, to whom, in case of need, I could fly for 
assistance : I always saw the possibility, and even 
the probabilitv, of being totally ruined by the 
hand of power ; but, happen what would, I was 



V.] TO A FATHER. 

resolved, that, as long as I could cause them to 
do it, my children should lead happy lives ; and 
happy lives they did lead, if ever children did in 
this whole world. 

2S3. The first thing that T did, when the fourth 
child had come, was to get into the country ', and 
so far as to render a going backward and for- ^ 
ward to London, at short intervals, quite out of 
the question. Thus was health, the greatest of 
all things, provided for, as far as I was able to 
make the provision. Next, my being always at 
home was secured as far as possible ; always with 
them to set an example of early rising, sobriety, 
and application to something or other. Chil- 
dren, and especially boys, will have some out-of- 
doors pursuits ; and it was my duty to lead them 
to choose such pursuits as combined future utility 
with present innocence. Each his flower-bed, 
little garden, plantation of trees ; rabbits, dogs, 
asses, horses, pheasants and hares ; hoes, spades, 
whips, guns ; always some object of lively inte- 
rest, and as much earnestness and bustle about 
the various objects as if our living had solely de- 
pended upon them. I made every thing give 
way to the great object of making their lives 
happy and innocent. I did not know what they 
might be in time, or what might be my lot; but 
I was resolved not to be the cause of their being 
unhappy then, let what might become of us after- 



cobbett's advice [Letter 

wards. I was, as I am, of opinion, that it is in- 
jurious to the mind to press book-learning upon 
it at an early age : I always felt pain for poor 
little things, set up, before " company," to re- 
peat verses, or bits of plays, at six or eight years 
old. I have sometimes not known which way to 
look, when a mother (and, too often, a father), 
whom I could not but respect on account of her 
fondness for her child, has forced the feeble-voiced 
eighth wonder of the world, to stand with its lit- 
tle hand stretched out, spouting the soliloquy of 
Hamlet, or some such thing. I remember, on 
one occasion, a little pale-faced creature, only 
five years old, was brought in, after the feeding 
part of the dinner was over, first to take his regu- 
lar half-glass of vintner's brewings, commonly 
called wine, and then to treat us to a display of 
his wonderful genius. The subject was a speech 
of a robust and bold youth, in a Scotch play, the 
title of which I have forgotten, but the speech 
began with, " My name is Norval : on the Gram- 
" pian Hills my father fed his flocks . . . " And 
this in a voice so weak and distressing as to put 
me in mind of the plaintive squeaking of little 
pigs when the sow is lying on them. As we were 
going home (one of my boys and I) he, after a 
silence of half a mile perhaps, rode up close to 
the side of my horse, and said, " Papa, where be 
" the Grampian Hilk ?" " Oh/' said I, " they 



V.] TO A FATHER. 

" are in Scotland ; poor, barren, beggarly places, 
" covered with heath and rushes, ten times as 
" barren as Sherril Heath." " But/' said he, 
" how could that little boy's father feed his flocks 
" there, then ?" I was ready to tumble off the 
horse with laughing. 

284. I do not know any thing much more dis- 
tressing to the spectators than exhibitions of this 
sort. Every one feels, not for the child, for it is 
insensible to the uneasiness it excites, but for the 
parents, whose amiable fondness displays itself in 
this ridiculous manner. Upon these occasions, 
no one knows what to say, or whither to direct 
his looks. The parents, and especially the fond 
mother, looks sharply round for the so -evidently 
merited applause, as an actor of the name of 
Munden, whom I recollect thirty years ago, 
used, when he had treated us to a witty shrug of 
his shoulders, or twist of his chin, to turn his face 
up to the gallery for the clap. f If I had to de- 
clare on my oath which have been the most dis- 
agreeable moments of my life, I verily believe, 
that, after due consideration, I should fix upon 
those, in which parents, whom I have respected, 
have made me endure exhibitions like these; for, 
this is your choice, to be insincere, or to give 
offence. 

285. And, as towards the child, it is to be 
unjust, thus to teach it to set a high value on 



cobbett's advice [Letter 

trifling, not to say mischievous, attainments ; to 
make it, whether it be in its natural disposition 
or not, vain and conceited. The plaudits which 
it receives, in such cases, puffs it up in its own 
thoughts, sends it out into the world stuffed with 
pride and insolence, which must and will be ex- 
tracted out of it by one means or another ; and 
none but those who have had to endure the draw- 
ing of firmly-fixed teeth, can, I take it, have an 
adequate idea of the painfulness of this operation. 
Now, parents have no right thus to indulge their 
own feelings at the risk of the happiness of their 
children. 

286. The great matter is, however, the spoil- 
ing °f th e niind by forcing on it thoughts which 
it is not fit to receive. We know well, we daily 
see, that in men, as well as in other animals, the 
body is rendered comparatively small and feeble 
by being heavily loaded, or hard worked, before 
it arrive at size and strength proportioned to such 
load and such work. It is just so with the mind c 
the attempt to put old heads upon young shoul- 
ders is just as unreasonable as it would be to ex- 
pect a colt six months old to be able to carry a 
man. The mind, as well as the body, requires 
time to come to its strength ; and the w r ay to 
have it possess, at last, its natural strength, is 
not to attempt to load it too soon ; and to favour 
it in its progress by giving to the body good and 



V.] TO A FATHER. 

plentiful food; sweet air, and abundant exercise, 
accompanied with as little discontent or uneasi- 
ness as possible. It is universally known, that 
ailments of the body are, in many cases, sufficient 
to destroy the mind, and to debilitate it in innu- 
merable instances. It is equally well known, 
that the torments of the mind are, in many cases, 
sufficient to destroy the body. This, then, being 
so well, known, is it not the first duty of a father 
to secure to his children, if possible, sound and 
strong bodies ? Lord Bacon says, that u a 
" sound mind in a sound body is the greatest of 
% God's blessings." To see his children possess 
these, therefore, ought to be the first object with 
every father ; an object which I cannot too often 
endeavour to fix in his mind. 

287. I am to speak presently of that sort of 
learning which is derived from books, and which 
is a matter by no means to be neglected, or to be 
thought little of, seeing that it is the road, not 
only to fame, but to the means of doing great 
good to one's neighbours and to one's country, 
and, thereby, of adding to those pleasant feelings 
which are, in other words, our happiness. But, 
notwithstanding this, I must here insist, and en- 
deavour to impress my opinion upon the mind of 
every father, that his children's happiness ought 
to be his first object; that hook-learning, if it 
tend to militate against this, ought to be disre- 



cobbett's advice [Letter 

garded; and that, as to money, as to fortune, as 
to rank and title, that father who can, in the des- 
tination of his children, think of them more than 
of the happiness of those children, is, if he be of 
sane mind, a great criminal. Who is there, hav- 
ing lived to the age of thirty, or even twenty, 
years, and having the ordinary capacity for ob- 
servation ; who is there, being of this description, 
who must not be convinced of the inadequacy of 
riches and what are called honours to insure hap- 
piness ? Who, amongst all the classes of men, 
experience, on an average, so little of real plea- 
sure, and so much of real pain as the rich and the 
lofty? Pope gives us, as the materials for hap- 
piness, " health, peace, and competence." Aye, 
but what is peace, and what is competence ? If, 
by peace, he mean that tranquillity of mind which 
innocence and good deeds produce, he is right 
and clear so far ; for we all know that, without 
health, which has a well-known positive mean- 
ing, there can be no happiness. But competence 
is a word of unfixed meaning. It may, with some, 
mean enough to eat, drink, wear and be lodged 
and warmed with ; but, with others, it may in- 
clude horses, carriages, and footmen laced over 
from top to toe. So that, here,' we have no 
guide; no standard; and, indeed, there can be 
none. But as every sensible father must know 
that the possession of riches do not, never did, and 



V.] TO A FATHER. 

never can, afford even a chance of additional 
happiness, it is his duty to inculcate in the minds 
of his children to make no sacrifice of principle, 
of moral obligation of any sort, in order to obtain 
riches, or distinction 3 and it is a duty still more 
imperative on him, not to expose them to the risk 
of loss of health, or diminution of strength, for 
purposes which have, either directly or indirectly, 
the acquiring of riches in view, whether for him- 
self or for them. 

288. With these principles immoveably im- 
planted in my mind, I became the father of a 
family, and on these principles I have, reared 
that family. Being myself fond of book-learning, 
and knowing well its powers, I naturally wished 
them to possess it too ; but never did I impose it 
upon any one of them. My first duty was to 
make them healthy and strong, if I could, and to 
give them as much enjoyment of life as possible. 
Born and bred up in the sweet air myself, I was 
resolved that they should be bred up in it too. 
Enjoying rural scenes and sports, as I had done, 
when a boy, as much as any one that ever was 
born, I was resolved, that they should have the 
same enjoyments tendered to them. When I 
was a very little boy, I was, in the barley-sowing 
season, going along by the side of a field, near 
Waverly Abbey; the primroses and blue-bells 
bespangling the banks on both sides of me ; a 
thousand linnets singing in a spreading oak over 



cobbett's advice [Letter 

my head ; while the jingle of the traces and the 
whistling of the ploughboys saluted my ear from 
over the hedge ; and, as it were to snatch me 
from the enchantment, the hounds, at that in-" 
starit, having started a hare in the hanger on the 
other side of the field, came up scampering over 
it in full cry, taking me after them many a mile. 
I was not more than eight years old) but this 
particular scene has presented itself to my mind 
many times every year from that day to this, I 
always enjoy it over again ; and I was resolved 
to give, if possible, the same enjoyments to my 
children. 

289. Men's circumstances are so various 1 
there is such a great variety in their situations in 
life, their business, the extent of their pecuniary 
means, the local state in which they are placed, 
their internal resources ; the variety in all these 
respects is so great, that, as applicable to every 
family, it would be impossible to lay down any 
set of rules, or maxims, touching every matter 
relating to the management and rearing up of 
children. In giving an account, therefore, of my 
own conduct, in this respect, I am not to be un- 
derstood as supposing, that every father can, or 
ought, to attempt to do the same ; but while it 
will be seen, that there are many, and these the 
most important parts of that conduct, that ail 
fathers may imitate, if they choose, there is no 
part of it which thousands and thousands of 



V.] TO A FATHER. 

fathers might not adopt and pursue, and adhere 
to, to the very letter. 

290. I effected every thing without scolding, 
and even without command. My children are a 
family of scholars, each sex its appropriate spe- 
cies of learning ; and, I could safely take my 
oath, that I never ordered & child of mine, son or 
daughter, to look into a book, in my life. My 
two eldest sons, when about eight years old, 
were, for the sake of their health, placed for a 
very short time, at a Clergyman's at Mjchel- 
DEVER, and my eldest daughter, a little older, at 
a school a few miles from Botley, to avoid taking 
them to London in the winter. But, with these 
exceptions, never had they, while children, teacher 
of any description ; and I never, and nobody else 
ever, taught any one of them to read, write, or 
any thing else, except in conversation ; and, yet, 
no man was ever more anxious to be the father of 
a family of clever and learned persons. 

291. I accomplished my purpose indirectly. 
The first thing of all was health, which was se- 
cured by the deeply-interesting and never-ending 
sports of the field and pleasures of the garden. 
Luckily these things were treated of in books and 
pictures of endless variety ; so that on wet days, 
in long evenings, these came into play. A large, 
strong table, in the middle of the room, their 
mother sitting at her work, used to be surrounded 
with them, the baby, if big enough, set up in a 

s2 



cobbeti's advice [Letter 

high chair. Here were ink-stands, pens, pencife, 
India rubber, and paper, all in abundance, and 
every one scrabbled about as he or she pleased. 
There were prints of animals of all sorts ; books 
treating of them : others treating of gardening, of 
flowers, of husbandry, of hunting, coursing, shoot- 
ing, fishing, planting, and, in short, of every thing, 
with regard to which ive had something to do. 
One would be trying to imitate a bit of my writ- 
ing, another drawing the pictures of some of our 
dogs or horses, a third poking over Bewick's Qua- 
drupeds, and picking out what he said about 
them ; but our book of never- failing resource was 
the French Mai son Rustique, or Farm-House, 
which, it is said, was the book that first tempted 
Buqltesnois (I think that was the name), the 
famous physician, in the reign of Louis XIV., 
to learn to read. Here are all the four- legged 
animals, from the horse down to the mouse, 
portraits and all ; all the birds, reptiles, insects ; 
all the modes of rearing, managing, and using 
the tame ones ; all the modes of taking the wild 
ones, and of destroying those that are mischie- 
vous ; all the various traps, springs, nets ; all the 
implements of husbandry and gardening ; all the 
labours of the field and the garden exhibited, as 
w T ell as the rest, in plates ; and, there was I, in 
Iny leisure moments, to join this inquisitive group, 
to read the French, and tell them what it meaned 
m English, when the picture did not sufficiently 



V.] TO A FATHER. 

explain itself. I never have been without a copy 
of this book for forty years, except during the 
time that I was fleeing from the dungeons of 
Castlereagh and Sidmouth, in 1817 ; and, 
when I got to Long Island, the first book I 
bought was another Maison Eustique. 

292. What need had we of schools ? What 
need of teachers ? What need of scolding and 
force, to induce children to read, write, and love 
books ? What need of cards, dice, or of any games, 
to " kill time ; " but, in fact, to implant in the in- 
fant heart a love of gaming, one of the most 
destructive of all human vices ? We did not want 
to " kill time : " we were always busy, wet 
weather or dry weather, winter or summer. There 
was no force in any case; no command ; no 
authority ; none of these was ever wanted. To 
teach the, children the habit of early rising was a 
great object ; and everyone knows how young 
people cling to their beds, and how loth they are 
to go to those beds. This was a capital matter ; 
because, here were industry and health both at 
stake. Yet, I avoided command even here ; and 
merely offered a reward. The child that was 
down stairs first, was called the Lark /or that 
day ; and, further, sat at my right hand at din- 
ner. They soon discovered, that to rise early, 
they must go to bed early ; and thus was this 
most important object secured, with regard to 
girls as well as boys. Nothing more inconve- 



cobbett s advice [Letter 

irient, and, indeed, more disgusting, than to have 
to do. with girls, or young women, who lounge in 
bed : " A little more sleep, a little more slumber, 
a little more folding of the hands to sleep." 
Solomon knew them well : he had, I dare say, 
seen the breakfast cooling, carriages and horses 
and servants waiting, the sun coming burning on, 
the day wasting, the night growing dark too early, 
appointments broken, and the objects of journeys 
defeated ; and all this from the lolloping in bed 
of persons who ought have risen with the sun. 
No beauty, no modesty, no accomplishments, are 
a compensation for the effects of laziness in 
women ; and, of all the proofs of laziness, none is 
so unequivocal as that of lying late in bed. Love 
makes men overlook this vice (for it is a vice), 
for a while ; but, this does not last for life. Be- 
sides, health demands early rising : the manage- 
ment of a house imperiously demands it; bat 
health, that most precious possession, without 
which there is nothing else worth possessing, 
demands it too. The morning air is the most 
wholesome and strengthening : even in crowded 
cities, men might do pretty well with the aid of 
the morning air; but, how are they to me early, 
if they go to bed late? 

293. But, to do the things I did, you must 
love home yourself; to rear up children in this 
manner, you must live luith them ; you must 
make them, too, feel y by your conduct, that you 



V.] TO A FATHER. 

prefer this to any other mode of passing your 
time. All men cannot lead this sort of life, but 
many may ; and all much more than many do. 
My occupation, to be sure, was chiefly carried on 
at home ; but, I had always enough to do 5 I 
never spent an idle week, or even day, in my 
whole life. Yet I found time to talk with them, 
to walk, or ride, about with them ; and when 
forced to g.o from home, always took one or more 
with me. You must be good-tempered too with 
them ; they must like your company better than 
any other person's ; they must not wish you 
away, not fear your coming back, not look upon 
your departure as a holiday. When my business 
kept me away from the scrabt?linff-tab\e, a peti- 
tion often came, that I would go and talk with 
the group, and the bearer generally was the 
youngest, being the most likely to succeed. When 
I went from home, all followed me to the outer- 
gate, and looked after me, till the carriage, or 
horse, was out of sight. At the time appointed 
for my return, all were prepared to meet me ; 
and if it were late at night, they sat up as long 
as" they were able to keep their eyes open.- This 
love of parents, and this constant pleasure at 
home, made them not even think of seeking plea- 
sure abroad; and they, thus, were kept from 
vicious playmates and early corruption. 

294. This is the age, too, to teach children 
to be trust-worthy, and to be merciful and 



cobbett's advice Letter 

humane. We lived in a garden of about two 
acres, partly kitchen-garden with walls, partly 
shrubbery and trees, and partly grass. There 
were the peaches, as tempting as any that ever 
grew, and yet as safe from fingers as if no child 
were ever in the garden. It was not necessary to 
forbid. The blackbirds, the thrushes, the white- 
throats, and even that very shy bird the goldfinch, 
had their nests and bred up their young-ones, in 
great abundance, all about this little spot, con- 
stantly the play-place of six children ; and one 
of the latter had its nest^ and brought up its 
young-ones, in a raspberry -bush, within two 
yards of a walk, and at the time that we were 
gathering the ripe raspberries. We give dogs, 
and justly, great credit for sagacity and memory f 
but the following two most curious instances, 
which I should not venture to state, if there were 
not so many witnesses to the facts, in my neigh- 
bours at Botley, as well as in my own family, 
will show, that birds are not, in this respct, in- 
ferior to the canine race. All country people 
know that the skylark is a very shy bird ; that 
its abode is the open fields : that it settles on 
the ground only ; that it seeks safety in the 
wideness of space ; that it avoids enclosures, and 
is never seen in gardens. A part of our ground 
was a grass-plat of about forty rods, or a quarter 
of an acre, which, one year, was left to be mowed 
for hay. A pair of larks, coming out of the 



\%| i 1 TO A FATHER. 

fields into the middle of a pretty populous village, 
ehose to make their nest in the middle of this 
little spot, and at not more than about thirty- 
jive yards from one of the doors of the house, in 
which there were about twelve persons living, 
and six of those children, who had constant 
access to all parts of the ground. There we saw 
the cock rising up and singing, then taking his 
turn upon the eggs ; and by-and-by, we observed 
him cease to sing, and saw them both constantly 
engaged in bringing food to the young ones. No- 
unintelligible hint to fathers and mothers of the 
human race, who have, before marriage, taken 
delight in music. But the time came for mowing 
the grass I I waited a good many days for the 
brood to get away; but, at last, I determined oil 
the day; and if the larks were there still, to 
leave a patch of grass standing round them. In 
order not to keep them in dread longer than ne- 
cessary, I brought three able mowers, who would 
cut the whole in about an hour ; and as the plat 
was nearly circular, set them to mow round, be- 
ginning at the outside. And now for sagacity 
indeed ! The moment the men began to whet 
their scythes, the two old larks began to flutter 
over the nest, and to make a great clamour. 
When the men began to mow, they flew round 
and round, stooping so low, when near the men, 
as almost to touch their bodies, making a great 
chattering at the same time ; but before the men 
s 5 



cojibett's advice [Letter 

had got round with the second swarthy they flew 
to the nest, and away they went, young ones and 
all, across the river, at the foot of the ground, 
and settled in the long grass in my neighbour's 
orchard, 

295. The other instance relates to a house- 
marten. It is well known that these birds 
build their nests under the eaves of inhabited 
houses, and sometimes under those of door 
porches \ but we had one that built its nest in 
the house, and upon the top of a common door- 
case, the door of which opened into a room out 
of the main passage into the house. Perceiving 
the marten had begun to build its nest here, we 
kept the front-door open in the daytime ; but 
were obliged to fasten it at night. It went on, 
had eggs, young ones, and the young ones flew. 
1 used to open the door in the morning early, and 
then the birds carried on their affairs till night. 
The next year the .marten came again, and had 
another brood in the same place. It found its 
old nest ; and having repaired it, and put it in 
order, went on again in the former way ; and it 
would, I dare say, have continued to come to the 
end of its life, if we had remained there so long, 
notwithstanding there were six healthy children 
in the house, making just as much noise as they 
pleased. 

296. Now, what sagacity in these birds, to 
discover that those were places of safety ! And 



VJ TO A FATHJER. 

how happy must it have made us, the parents, to 
be jsure that our children had thus deeply imbibed 
habits the contrary erf cruelty ! For, be it en- 
graven on your heart, young man, that, what^ 
ever appearances may say to the contrary, cruelty 
is always accompanied with cowardice, and also 
with perfidy) when that is called for by the cir- 
cumstances of the case ; and that habitual acts of 
cruelty to other creatures, will, nine times out 
of ten, produce, when the power is possessed, 
cruelty to human beings. The ill-usage oihorses, 
and particularly asses, is a grave and a just 
charge against this nation. No other nation on 
earth is guilty of it to the same extent. Not 
only by blows, but by privation, are we cruel 
towards these useful, docile, and patient crea- 
tures ; and especially towards the last, which is 
the most docile and patient and laborious of the 
two, while the food that satisfies it, is of the 
coarsest and least costly kind^ and in quantity 
so small ! In the habitual ill-treatment of this 
animal, which, in addition to all its labours, has 
the milk taken from its young ones to administer 
a remedy for our ailments, there is something 
that bespeaks ingratitude hardly to be described. 
In a Register that I wrote from Long Island, I 
said, that amongst all the things of which I had been 
bereft, I regretted no one so much as a very dimi- 
nutive mare, on which my children had all, in 
succession, learned to ride. She was become 



cobbettV advice [Letter 

useless for them, and, indeed, for any other pur- 
pose; but the recollection of her was so entwined 
with so many past circumstances, which, at that 
distance, my mind conjured up, that I really was 
very uneasy, lest she should fall into cruel hands. 
By good luck, she was, after a while, turned out 
on the wide world to shift for herself ; and when 
we got back, and had a place for her to stand m 3 
from her native forest we brought her to Ken- 
sington, and she is now at Barn-Elm, about 
twenty-six years old, and I dare say, as fat as a 
mole. Now, not only have I no moral right 
(considering my ability to pay for keep) to de- 
prive her of life ; but it would be unjust and un- 
grateful, in me to withhold from her sufficient 
food and lodging to make life as pleasant as pos- 
sible while that life last. 

297- In the meanwhile the book-learning crept 
in of its own accord, by imperceptible degrees. 
Children naturally want to be like their parents, 
and to do what they do : the boys following their 
father, and the girls their mother; and as I was 
always ivriting or reading, mine naturally desired 
to do something in the same way. But, at the 
same time, they heard no talk from fools or 
drinkers; saw me with no idle, gabbling, empty 
companions ; saw no vain and affected coxcombs, 
and no tawdry and extravagant women ; saw no 
nasty gormandizing; and heard no gabble about 
play-houses and romances and the other non- 



V.] TO A FATHER. 

sense that fit boys to be lobby-loungers, and girls 
to be the ruin of industrious and frugal young 
men. 

298. We wanted no stimulants of this sort to 
keep up our spirits: our various pleasing pur- 
suits were quite sufficient for that j and the book- 
learning came amongst the rest of the pleasures, 
to which it was, in some sort, necessary. I re- 
member that, one year, I raised a prodigious crop 
of fine melons, under hand-glasses ; and I learned 
how to do it from a gardening book; or, at least, 
that book was necessary to remind me of the de- 
tails. Having passed part of an evening in talk- 
ing to the boys about getting this crop, u Come," 
said I, "now, let us read the book" Then the 
book came forth, and to work we went, following 
very strictly the precepts of the book. I read 
the thing but once, but the eldest boy read if, 
perhaps, twenty times over; and explained all 
about the matter to the others. Why here was 
a motive ! Then he had to tell the garden- 
labourer what to do to the melons. Now, I will 
engage, that more was really learned by this sin- 
gle lesson, than would have been learned by spend- 
ing, at this son's age, a year at school; and he happy 
and delighted all the while. When any dispute 
arose amongst them about hunting or shooting, 
or an^ other of their pursuits, they, by degrees, 
found out the way of settling it by reference to 
some book ; and when any difficulty occurred, as 



cobbett's advice [Letter 

to the meaning, they referred to me, who, if at 
home, always instantly attended to them, in these 
matters. 

299. They began writing by taking words out 
of printed books; finding out which letter was 
which, by asking me, or asking those who knew 
the letters one from another; and by imitating 
bits of my writing, it is surprising how soon they 
began to write a hand like mine, very small, very 
faint-stroked, and nearly plain as print. The 
first use that any one of them made of the pen, 
was to write to me, though in the same house 
with them. They began doing this in mere 
scratches, before they knew how to make any one 
letter; and as I was always folding up letters and 
directing them, so were they ; and they were sure 
to receive a prompt answer, with most encou- 
raging compliments. All the meddlings and 
teazings of friends, and, what was more serious, 
the pressing prayers of their anxious mother, 
about sending them to school, I withstood with- 
out the slightest effect on my resolution. As to 
friends, preferring my own judgment to theirs, I 
did not care much; but an expression of anxiety, 
implying a doubt of the soundness of my own judg- 
ment, coming, perhaps, twenty times a day from 
her whose care they were as well as mine, was 
not a matter to smile at, and very great trouble 
it did give me. My answer at last was, as to the 
boys, I want them to be like me; and- as to the 



V.] TO A FATHER. 

girls, In whose hands can they be so safe as in 
yours ? Therefore my resolution is taken : go to 
school they shall not. 

300. Nothing is much more annoying than the 
intermeddling of friends, in a case like this. The 
wife appeals to them, and " good breeding," that 
is to say, nonsense, is sure to put them on her 
side. Then, they, particularly the women, when 
describing the surprising progress made by their 
own sons at school, used, if one of mine were 
present, to turn to him, and ask, to what school 
he ivent, and what he was learning ? I leave any 
one to judge of his opinion of her ; and whether 
he would like her the better for that ! u Bless 
" me, so tall, and not learned any thing yet !" 
% Oh yes, he has/' I used to say, " he has learned 
% to ride, and hunt, and shoot, and fish, and look 
" after cattle and sheep, and to work in the gar- 
" den, and to feed his dogs, and to go from vil- 
" lage to village in the dark." This was the way 
I used to manage with troublesome customers of 
this sort. And how glad the children used to be, 
when they got clear of such criticising people ! 
And how grateful they felt to me for the protec- 
tion which they saw that I gave them against 
that state of restraint, of which other people's 
boys complained 1 Go whither they might, they 
found no place so pleasant as home, and no soul 
that came near them affording them so many 
means of gratification as they received from me* 



cobbett's advice [Letter 

301. In this happy state we lived, until ; the 
year 1810, when the government laid its merci- 
less fangs upon me, dragged me from these de- 
lights, and crammed me into a jail amongst felons \; 
of which I shall have to speak more fully, when, 
in the last Number, I come to speak of the duties 
of the Citizen. This added to the difficulties 
of my task of teaching ; for now I was snatched 
away from the only scene in which it could, as I 
thought, properly be executed. But even these 
difficulties were got over. The blow was, to be 
sure, a terrible one ; and, oh God ! how was it 
felt by these poor children ! It was in the month 
of July when the horrible sentence was passed 
upon me. My wife, having left her children in 
the care of her good and affectionate sister, was 
in London, waiting to know the doom of her 
husband. When the news arrived at Botley, the 
three boys, one eleven, another nine, and the other 
seven, years old, were hoeing cabbages in that 
garden which had been the source of so much 
delight. When the account of the savage sen- 
tence was brought to them, the youngest could 
not, for some time, be made to understand what 
a jail was 5 and, when he did, he, all in a tremor, 
exclaimed, " Now I'm sure, William, that Papa 
is not in a place like that /" The other, in order 
to disguise his tears and smother his sobs, fell 
to work with the hoe, and chopped about like a 
pe?*son. This account, when it reached 



V.} TO A FATHER. 

me, affected- me more, filled me with deeper re- 
sentment, than any other circumstance. And, 
oh ! how I despise the wretches who talk of my 
vindictiveness ; of my exultation at the confusion 
of those who inflicted those sufferings ! How I de- 
spise the base creatures, the crawling slaves, the 
callous and cowardly hypocrites, who affect to be 
"shocked" (tender souls!) at my expressions of 
joy, and at the death of Gibbs, Ellenborough, 
Percival, Liverpool, Canning, and the rest of the 
tribe that I have already seen out, and at the 
fatal workings of that system, for endeavouring 
to check which I was thus punished ! How I 
despise these wretches, and how I, above all 
things, enjoy their ruin, and anticipate their 
utter beggary ! What ! I am to forgive, am I, 
injuries like this; and that, too, without any 
atonement ? Oh, no! I have not so read the 
Holy Scriptures ; I have not, from them, learned 
that I am not to rejoice at the fall of unjust 
foes ; and it makes a part of rny happiness to be 
able to tell millions of men that I do thus rejoice, 
and that I have the means of calling on so many 
just and merciful men to rejoice along with me. 

302. Now, then, the book-learning was forced 
upon us. I had a farm in hand. It was neces- 
sary that I should be constantly informed of what 
was doing. I gave all the orders, whether as Jo 
purchases, sales, ploughing, sowing, breeding ; 
in short, with regard to every thing, and the 



cobbett's advice [Letter 

things were endless in number and variety, and 
always full of interest. My eldest son and daugh- 
ter could now write well and fast. One or the 
other of these was always at Botley ; and I had 
with me (having hired the best part of the 
keeper's house) one or two, besides either this 
brother or sister ; the mother coming up to town 
about once in two or three months, leaving the 
house and children in the care of her sister. We 
had a hampek, with a lock and two keys, which 
came up once a week, or oftener, bringing me 
fruit and all sorts of country fare, for the carriage 
of which, cost free, I was indebted to as good a 
man as ever God created, the late Mr. George 
Rogers, of Southampton, who, in the prime of 
life, died deeply lamented by thousands, but by 
none more deeply than by me and my family, 
who have to thank him, and the whole of his ex- 
cellent family, for benefits and marks of kindness 
without number. 

303. This hamper, which was always, at both 
ends of the line, looked for with the most lively 
feelings, became our school. It brought me a 
journal of labours, proceedings, and occurrences, 
written on paper of shape and size uniform, and 
so contrived, as to margins, as to admit of bind- 
ing. The journal used, when my son was the 
writer, to be interspersed with drawings of our 
dogs, colts, or any thing that he wanted me to 
have a correct idea of. The hamper brought me 



VJ TO A FATHER. 

plants, bulbs, and the like, that I might see the 
size of them : and always every one sent his or 
her most beautiful flowers ; the earliest violets, 
and primroses, and cowslips, and blue-bells ; the 
earliest twigs of trees ; and, in short, every thing 
that they thought calculated to delight me. The 
moment the hamper arrived, I, casting aside 
every thing else, set to work to answer every 
question, to give new directions, and to add any- 
thing likely to give pleasure at Botley. Every 
hamper brought one u letter" as they called it, 
if not more, from every child \ and to every letter 
I wrote an answer, sealed up and sent to the 
party, being sure that that was the way to pro- 
duce other and better letters 3 for, though they 
could not read what I wrote, and though their 
own consisted at first of mere scratches, and 
afterwards, for a while, of a few words written 
down for them to imitate, I always thanked 
them for their "pretty letter" ; and never ex- 
pressed any wish to see them write better ; but 
took care to write in a very rieat and plain hand 
myself, and to do up my letter in a very neat 
manner. 

304. Thus, while the ferocious tigers thought 
I was doomed to incessant mortification, and to 
rage that must extinguish my mental powers, I 
found in my children, and in their spotless and 
courageous and most affectionate mother, de- 
lights to which the callous hearts of those tigers 



cobbettY advice [Letter 

were strangers. " Heaven first taught letters for 
some wretch's aid." How often did this line of 
Pope occur to me when I opened the little spud- 
dlmy iC letters " from Botley ! This correspond- 
ence occupied a good part of my time : I had all 
the children with me, turn and turn ahout 5 and, 
in order to give the boys exercise, and to give 
the two eldest an opportunity of beginning 
to learn French, I used, for a part of the two 
years, to send them a few hours in the day to 
an Abbe, who lived in Castle-street, Holborn. 
All this was a great relaxation to my mind; 
and, when I had to return to my literary labours, 
I returned fresh and cheerful, full of vigour, and 
full of hope, of finally seeing my unjust and mer- 
ciless foes at my feet, and that, too, without 
caring a straw on whom their fall might bring 
calamity, so that my own family were safe ; be- 
cause, say what any one might, the community, 
taken as a whole, had suffered * this thing to be 
done unto us. 

305. The paying of the work-people, the keep- 
ing of the accounts, the referring to books, the 
writing and reading of letters ; this everlasting 
mixture of amusement with book-learning, made 
me, almost to my own surprise, find, at the end of 
the two years, that I had a parcel of scholars grow- 
ing up about me ; and, long before the end of the 
time, I had dictated many Registers to my two 
eldest children. Then, there was copying out 



V.] TO A FATHER. 

of books, which taught spelling correctly. The 
calculations about the farming affairs forced 
arithmetic upon us : the use, the necessity, of 
the thing, led to the study. By-and-by, we had 
to look into the laws to know what to do about 
the highways, about the game, about the poor, 
and all rural and parochial affairs. I was, in- 
deed, by the fangs of the government, defeated 
in my fondly-cherished project of making my 
sons farmers on their own land, and keeping 
them from all temptation to seek vicious and 
enervating enjoyments; but those fangs, merci- 
less as they had been, had not been able to pre- 
vent me from laying in for their lives a store of 
useful information, habits of industry, care, so- 
briety, and a taste for innocent, healthful, and 
manly pleasures : the fangs had made me and 
them pennyless ; but, they had not been able to 
take from us our health or our mental posses- 
sions; and these were ready for application as 
circumstances might ordain. 

306. After the age that I have now been 
speaking of, fourteen, I suppose every one be- 
came a reader and writer according to fancy. 
As to books, with the exception of the Poets, 
I never bought, in my whole life, any one that I 
did not want for some purpose of utility, and of 
practical utility too. I have two or three times 
had the whole collection snatched away from me ; 
and have begun again to get them together as they 



coebett's advice [Letter 

were wanted. Go and kick an Ant's nest about, 
and you will see the little laborious, courageous 
creatures instantly set to work to get it together 
again ; and if you do this ten times over, ten 
times over they will do the same. Here is the 
sort of stuff that men must be made of to oppose, 
with success, those who, by whatever means, get 
possession of great and mischievous power. 

307. Now, I am aware, that that which I did, , 
cannot be done by every one of hundreds of 
thousands of fathers, each of whom loves his 
children with all his soul : I am aware that the 
attorney, the surgeon, the physician, the trader, 
and even the farmer, cannot, generally speaking, 
do what I did, and that they must, in most cases, 
send their sons to school, if it be necessary for 
them to have book- learning. But while I say 
this, I know, that there are many things, which I 
did, which many fathers might do, and which, 
nevertheless, they do not do. It is in the power 
of every father to live at home with his family, 
when not compelled by business, or by public duty, 
to be absent : it is in his power to set an exam- 
ple of industry and sobriety and frugality, and to 
prevent a taste for gaming, dissipation, extrava- 
gance, from getting root in the minds of his 
children : it is in his power to continue to make 
his children hearei*s, when he is reproving ser- 
vants for idleness, or commending them for 
industry and care : it is in his power to keep all 



V.] TO A FATHER. 

dissolute and idly-talking companions from his 
house : it is in his power to teach them, by his'uni- 
form example, justice and mercy towards the in- 
ferior animals : it is in his power to do many other 
things, and something in the way of book-learning 
too, however busy his life may be, It is com- 
pletely within his power to teach them early- 
rising and early going to bed ; and, if many a 
man, who says that he has not time to teach his 
children, were to sit down, in sincerity, with a 
pen and a bit of paper, and put down all the 
minutes, which he, in every .twenty-four hours, 
wastes over the bottle, or over cheese and 
oranges and raisins and biscuits, after he has 
dined ; how many he lounges away, either at the 
cofTee-house or at home, over the useless part of 
newspapers ; how many he spends in waiting for 
the coming and the managing of the tea-table ; 
how many he passes by candle-light, wearied of 
his existence, when he might be in bed; how 
many he passes in the morning in bed, wliile the 
sun and dew shine, and sparkle for him in vain : 
if he were to put all these together, and were to 
add those which he passes in the reading of books 
for his mere personal amusement, and without the 
smallest chance of acquiring from them any use- 
ful practical knowledge : if he were to sum up 
the whole of these, and add to them the time 
worse than wasted in the contemptible work of 
dressing off Ms person, he would be frightened 



cobbett's advice [Letter 

at the result ; would send for his boys from 
school ; and if greater book-learning "than he 
possessed were necessary, he would choose for 
the purpose some man of ability, and see the 
teaching carried on under his own roof, with 
safety as to morals, and with the best chance as 
to health. 

80S. If after all, however, a school must be re- 
sorted to, let it, if in your power, be as little popu- 
lous as possible. As "evil communications corrupt 
good manners," so the more numerous the as- 
semblage, and the more extensive the communica- 
tion, the greater the chance of corruption. Jails, 
barracks .factories, do not corrupt by their walls, 
but by their condensed numbers. Populous cities 
corrupt from the same cause; and it is, because it 
must be, the same with regard to schools, out of 
which children come not what they were when 
they went in. The master is, in some sort, their 
enemy ; he is their overlooker ; he is a spy upon 
them ; his authority is maintained by his abso- 
lute power of punishment; the parent commits 
thertl to that power ; to be taught is to be held 
in restraint ; and, as the sparks fly upwards, the 
teaching and the restraint will not be divided in 
the estimation of the boy. Besides all this, there 
is the great disadvantage of tardiness in arriving 
at years of discretion. If boys live only with 
boys, their ideas will continue to be boyish ; if 
they see and hear and converse with nobody but 



V.] TO A FATHER. 

boys, how are they to have the thoughts and the 
character of men ? It is, at last, only by hearing 
men talk and seeing men act, that they learn to 
talk and act like men \ and, therefore, to confine 
them to the society of boys, is to retard their 
arrival at the years of discretion \ and in case of 
adverse circumstances in the pecuniary way, 
where, in all the creation, is there so helpless a 
mortal as a boy who has always been at school ! 
But, if, as I said before, a school there must be, 
let the congregation be as small as possible ; and, 
do not expect too much from the master \ for, 
if it b e irksome to you to teach your own sons, 
what must that teaching be to him ? If he have 
great numbers, he must delegate his authority ; 
and, like all other delegated authority, it will 
either be abused or neglected. 

309. With regard to girls, one would think 
that mothers would want no argument to make 
them shudder at the thought of committing the 
care of their daughters to other hands than their 
own. If fortune have so favoured them as to 
make them rationally desirous that their daugh- 
ters should have more of what are called accom- 
plishments than they themselves have, it has also 
favoured them with the means of having teachers 
under their own eye. If it have not favoured 
them so highly as this (and it seldom has in the 
middle rank of life), wdiat duty so sacred as that 
imposed on a mother to be the teacher of her 

T 



cobbett's advice [Letter 

daughters ! And is she, from love of ease or of 
pleasure or of any thing else, to neglect this 
duty; is she to commit her daughters to the 
care of persons, with whose manners and morals 
it is impossible for her to be thoroughly ac- 
quainted ; is she to send them into the promiscu- 
ous society of girls, who belong to nobody knows 
whom, and come from nobody knows whither, and 
some of whom, for aught she can know to the 
contrary, may have been corrupted before, and 
sent thither to be hidden from their former 
circle; is she to send her daughters to be shut 
up within walls, the bare sight of which awaken 
the idea of intrigue and invite to seduction and 
surrender ; is she to leave the health of her 
daughters to chance, to shut them up with a 
motley bevy of strangers, some of whom, as is 
frequently the case, are proclaimed bastards, by 
the undeniable testimony given by the colour of 
their shin j is she to do all this, and still put 
forward pretensions to the authority and the 
affection due to a mother ! And, are you to per- 
mit all this, and still call yourself a father ! 

310. Well, then, having resolved to teach your 
own children, or, to have them taught, at home, 
let us now see how they ought to proceed as to 
books for learning. It is evident, speaking of 
boys, that, at last, they must study the art, or 
science, that you intend them to pursue ; if they 
be to be surgeons, they must read books on sur- 



V.] TO A FATHER, 

geryj and the like in other cases. But, there 
are certain elementary studies ; certain books to 
be used by all persons, who are destined to ac- 
quire any book-learning at all. Then there are 
departments, or branches of knowledge, that 
every man in the middle rank of life, ought, if he 
can, to acquire, they being, in some sort, neces- 
sary to his reputation as a well-informed man, 
a character to which the farmer and the shop- 
keeper ought to aspire as well as the lawyer and 
the surgeon. Let me now, then, offer my advice 
as to the course of reading, and the manner of 
reading, for a boy, arrived at his fourteenth year, 
that being, in my opinion, early enough for him 
to begin. 

311. And, first of all, whether as to boys or 
girls, I deprecate romances of every description. 
It is impossible that they can do any goody 
and they may do a great deal of harm. They 
excite passions that ought to lie dormant ; they 
give the mind a taste for highly -seasoned matter ; 
they make matters of real life insipid; every girl, 
addicted to them, sighs to be a Sophia Western, 
and every boy, a Tom Jones. What girl is not 
in love with the wild youth, and what boy does 
not find a justification for his wildness ? What 
can be more pernicious than the teachings of this 
celebrated romance ? Here axe two young men 
put before us, both sons of the same mother; the 
one a bastard (and by a parson too), the other a 
t2 



cobbett's advice [Letter 

legitimate child ; the former wild, disobedient, 
and squandering ; the latter steady, sober, obe- 
dient, and frugal; the former every thing that is 
frank and generous in his nature, the latter a 
greedy hypocrite ; the former rewarded with the 
most beautiful and virtuous of women and a dou- 
ble estate, the latter punished by being made an 
outcast. How is it possible for young people 
to read such a book, and to look upon orderli- 
ness, sobriety, obedience, and frugality, as virtues? 
And this is the tenor of almost every romance, 
and of almost every play, in our language. In 
the Ci School for Scandal," for instance, we see 
two brothers j the one a prudent and frugal man, 
and, to all appearance, a moral man, the other 
a hair-brained squanderer, laughing at the mo- 
rality of his brother ; the former turns out to be 
a base hypocrite and seducer, and is brought to 
shame and disgrace \ while the latter is found to 
be full of generous sentiment, and Heaven itself 
seems to interfere to give him fortune and fame. 
In short, the direct tendency of the far greater 
part of these books, is, to cause young people to 
despise all those virtues, without the practice of 
which they must be a curse to their parents, a 
burden to the community, and must, except by 
mere accident, lead wretched lives. I do not 
recollect one romance nor one play, in our lan- 
guage, which has not this tendency. How is it 
possible for young princes to read the historical 



V.] TO A FATHER. 

plays of the punning and smutty Shakspeare, 
and not think, that to be drunkards, blackguards, 
the companions of debauchees and robbers, is the 
suitable beginning of a glorious reign ? 

312. There is, too, another most abominable 
principle that runs through them all, namely, that 
there is in high birth, something of superior na- 
ture, instinctive courage, honour, and talent. 
Who can look at the two royal youths in Cymbe- 
line, or at the noble youth in Douglas, without 
detesting the base parasites who wrote those 
plays ? Here are youths, brought up by shep- 
herds, never told of their origin, believing them- 
selves the sons of these humble parents, but dis- 
covering, when grown up, the highest notions of 
valour and honour, and thirsting for military 
renown, even while tending their reputed fathers' 
flocks and herds ! And, why this species of false- 
hood ? To cheat the mass of the people 5 to 
keep them in abject subjection ; to make them 
quietly submit to despotic swa} r . And the infa- 
mous authors are guilty of the cheat, because 
they are, in one shape or another, paid by oppres- 
sors out of means squeezed from the people. A 
true picture would give us just the reverse 5 
would show us that " high birth" is the enemy 
of virtue, of valour, and of talent; would show 
us, that with all their incalculable advantages, 
royal and noble families have, only by mere acci- 
dent, produced a great man; that, in general, 



cobbett's advice [Letter 

they have been amongst the most effeminate, 
unprincipled, cowardly, stupid, and, at the very 
least, amongst the most useless persons, consi- 
dered as individuals, and not in connexion with 
the prerogatives and powers bestowed on them 
solely by the law. 

313. It is impossible for me, by any words 
that I can use, to express, to the extent of my 
thoughts, the danger of suffering young people to 
form their opinions from the writings of poets and 
romances. Nine times out of ten, the morality 
they teach is bad, and must have a bad tendency. 
Their wit is employed to ridicule virtue^ as you 
will almost always find, if you examine the mat- 
ter to the bottom. The world owes a very large 
part of its sufferings to tyrants j but what tyrant 
was there amongst the ancients, whom the poets 
did not place amongst the gods? Can you open 
an English poet, without, in some part or other 
of his works, finding the grossest flatteries of 
royal and noble persons ? How are young people 
not to think that the praises bestowed on these 
persons are just? Dryben, Parnell, Gay, 
Thomson, in short, what poet have we had, or 
have we, Pope only excepted, who was not, or is 
not, -a pensioner, or a sinecure placeman, or the 
wretched dependent of some part of the Aris- 
tocracy ? Of the extent of the powers of 
writers in producing mischief to a nation, we 
have two most striking instances in the cases 



V.J TO A FATHER. 

of Dr. Johnson and Burke. The former, at 
a. time when it was a question whether war 
should be made on America to compel her to 
submit to be taxed by the English parliament, 
wrote a pamphlet, entitled, " Taxation no 
Tyranny" to urge the nation into that war. The 
latter, when it was a question, whether England 
should wage war against the people of France, 
to prevent them from reforming their govern- 
ment,- wrote a pamphlet to urge the nation into 
that war. The first war lost us America, the last 
cost us six hundred millions of money, and has 
loaded us with forty millions a year of taxes. 
Johnson, however, got a pension for his Hfe 9 
and Burke a pension for his life, and for three 
lives after his oivnl Cumberland and Mur- 
phy, the play- writers, were pensioners ; and, in 
short, of the whole mass, where has there been 
one, whom the people were not compelled to pay 
for labours, having for their principal object the 
deceiving and enslaving of that same people ? 
It is, therefore, the duty of every father, when he 
puts a book into the hands of his son or daughter, 
to give the reader a true account of ivho and what 
the writer of the book was, or is. 

314. If a boy be intended for any particular 
calling, he ought, of course, to be induced to 
read books relating to that calling, if such books 
there be \ and, therefore, I shall not be more par- 
ticular on that head. But, there are certain 



cobbett's advice [Letter 

OT 

things, that all men in the middle rank of life, 
ought to know something of 3 because the know- 
ledge will be a source of pleasure ; and because 
the want of it must, very frequently, give them 
pain, by making them appear inferior, in point of 
mind, to many who are, in fact, their inferiors in 
that respect. These things are grammar, arith- 
metic, history, accompanied with geography. 
Without these, a man, in the middle rank of life, 
however able he may be in his calling, makes but 
an awkward figure. Without grammar he cannot, 
with safety to his character as a well-informed 
man, put his thoughts upon paper ; nor can he 
be sure, that he is speaking with propriety. 
How many clever men have I known, full of na- 
tural talent, eloquent by nature, replete with every 
thing calculated to give them weight in society \ 
and yet having little or no weight, merely be- 
cause unable to put correctly upon paper that 
which they have in their minds ! For me not to 
say, that I deem my English Grammar the best 
book for teaching this science, would be affecta- 
tion, and neglect of duty besides ; because I 
know, that it is the best ; because I wrote it for 
the purpose ; and because, hundreds and hun- 
dreds of men and women have told me, some 
verbally, and some by letter, that, though (many 
of them) at grammar schools for years, they really 
never knew any thing of grammar, until they 
studied my book. I, who know well all the diffi- 



V.] TO A FATHER. 

culties that I experienced when I read books 
upon the subject, can easily believe this, and es- 
pecially when I think of the numerous instances 
in which I have seen university- scholars unable to 
write English, with any tolerable degree of cor- 
rectness. In this book, the principles are so 
clearly explained, that the disgust arising from 
intricacy is avoided ; and it is this disgust, that is 
the great and mortal enemy of acquiring know- 
ledge. 

315. With regard to arithmetic, it is abranch 
of learning absolutely necessary to every one, 
who has any pecuniary transactions beyond those 
arising out of the expenditure of his week's 
wages. All the books on this subject that I had 
ever seen, were so bad, so destitute of every thing 
calculated to lead the mind into a knowledge of 
the matter, so void of principles, and so evidently 
tending to puzzle and disgust the learner, by 
their sententious, and crabbed, and quaint, and 
almost hieroglyphical definitions, that I, at one 
time, had the intention of writing a little work on 
the subject myself. It was put off, from one 
cause or another ; but a little work on the sub- 
ject has been, partly at my suggestion, written 
and published by Mr. Thomas Smith of Liver- 
pool, and is sold by Mr. Sherwood, in London. 
The author has great ability, and a perfect know- 
ledge of his subject. It is a book of principles ; 
and any young person of common capacity, will 
to 



cqhbett's advice [Letter 

learn more from it in a week, than from all the 
other books, that I ever saw on the subject, in a 
twelvemonth. 

316. While the foregoing studies are proceed- 
ing, though they very well afford a relief to each 
other, history may serve as a relaxation, parti- 
cularly during the study of grammar, which is an 
undertaking requiring patience and time. Of 
all history, that of our own country is of the 
most importance ; because, for want of a thorough 
knowledge of what has been, we are, in many 
cases, at a loss to account for what is, and still 
more at a loss, to be able to show what ought to 
be. The difference between history and romance 
is this ; that that which is narrated in the latter, 
leaves in the mind nothing which it can apply to 
present or future circumstances and events ; while 
the former, when it is what it ought to be, leaves 
the mind stored with arguments for experience, 
applicable, at all times, to the actual affairs of 
life. The history of a country ought to show the 
origin and progress of its institutions, political, 
civil, and ecclesiastical ; it ought to show the 
effects of those institutions upon the state of the 
people 3 it ought to delineate the measures of the 
government at the several epochs ; and, having 
clearly described the state of the people at the 
several periods, it ought to show the cause of 
their freedom, good morals, and happiness 5 or 
of their misery, immorality, and slavery \ and this, 



V.] TO A FATHER. 

too, by the production of indubitable facts, and 
of inferences so manifestly fair, as to leave not 
the smallest doubt upon the mind. 

317. Do the histories of England which we 
have, answer this description? They are very 
little better than romances. Their contents are 
generally confined to narrations relating to battles, 
negociations, intrigues, contests between rival 
sovereignties, rival nobles, and to the character of 
kings, queens, mistresses, bishops, ministers, and 
the like \ from scarcely any of w T hich can the 
reader draw any knowledge which is at all appli- 
cable to the circumstances of the present day. 

318. Besides this, there is the falsehood ; and 
the falsehoods contained in these histories, where 
shall we find any thing to surpass ? Let us 
take one instance. They all tell us, that William 
the Conqueror knocked down twenty-six parish 
churches, and laid waste the parishes in order to 
make the New Forest; and this in a tract of the 
very poorest land in England, where the churches 
must then have stood at about one mile and two 
hundred yards from each other. The truth is, 
that all the churches are still standing that were 
there when William landed, and the whole story 
is a sheer falsehood from the beginning to the 
end. 

319. But, this is a mere specimen of these 
romances ; and that too, with regard to a matter 
comparatively unimportant to us. The important 



cobbett's advice [Letter 

falsehoods are, those which misguide us by state- 
ment or by inference, with regard to the state of 
the people at the several epochs, as produced by 
the institutions of the country, or the measures 
of the Government. It is always the object of 
those who have power in their hands, to persuade 
the people that they are better off than their 
forefathers were: it is the great business of 
history to show how this matter stands ; and, 
with respect to this great matter, what are we to 
learn from any thing that has hitherto been 
called a history of England ! I remember, that, 
about a dozen years ago, I was talking with a 
very clever young man, who had read twice or 
thrice over the History of England, by different 
authors j and that I gave the conversation a turn 
that drew from him, unperceived by himself, that 
he did not know how tithes, parishes, poor-rates, 
church-rates, and the abolition of trial by jury in 
hundreds of cases, came to be in England; and, 
that he had not the smallest idea of the manner 
in which the Duke of Bedford came to possess 
the power of taxing our cabbages in Covent- 
Garden. Yet, this is history. I have done a 
great deal, with regard to matters of this sort, in 
my famous History of the Protestant Refor- 
mation ) for I may truly call that famous, which 
has been translated and published in all the 
modern languages. 

329, But, it is reserved for me to write a com- 



V.] TO A FATHER. 

plete history of the country from the earliest 
times to the present day ; and this, God giving 
me life and health, I shall begin to do in monthly 
numbers, beginning on the first of September, 
and in which I shall endeavour to combine brevity 
with clearness. We do not want to consume our 
time over a dozen pages about Edward the 
Third dancing at a ball, picking up a lady's 
garter, and making that garter the foundation of 
an order of knighthood, bearing the motto of 
" Honi soit qui mal y pense." It is not stuff like 
this ; but we want to know what was the state of 
the people ; what were a labourer's wages ; what 
were the prices of the food, and how the labour- 
ers were dressed in the reign of that great king. 
What is a young person to imbibe from a history 
of England, as it is called, like that of Goldsmith ? 
It is a little romance to amuse children ; and the 
other historians have given us larger romances 
to amuse lazy persons who are grown up. To 
destroy the effects of these, and to make the 
people know what their country has been, will be 
my object ; and this, I trust, I shall effect. We 
are, it is said, to have a History of England from 
Sir James Mackintosh ; a History of Scotland 
from Sir Walter Scott ; and a History of 
Ireland from Tommy Moore, the luscious poet. 
A Scotch lawyer, who is a pensioner, and a 
member for Knaresborough, which is well known 
to the Duke of Devonshire, who has the great 



cobbett's advice [Letter 

tithes of twenty parishes in Ireland, will, doubt- 
less, write a most impartial History of England, 
and particularly as far as relates to boroughs and 
tithes. A Scotch romance-writer, who, under 
the name of Malagroiather, wrote a pamphlet to 
prove, that one -pound-notes were the cause of 
riches to Scotland, will write, to be sure, a most 
instructive History of Scotland. And, from the 
pen of an Irish poet, who is a sinecure placeman, 
and a protege of an English peer that has im- 
mense parcels of Irish confiscated estates, what a 
beautiful history shall we not then have of un- 
fortunate Ireland ! Oh, no ! We are not going 
to be content with stuff such as these men will 
bring out. Hume and Smollett and Robertson 
have cheated us long enough. We are not in a 
humour to be cheated any longer. 

321. Geography is taught at schools, if we 
believe the school-cards. The scholars can tell 
you all about the divisions of the earth, and this 
is very well for persons who have leisure to in- 
dulge their curiosity j but it does seem to me 
monstrous that a young person's time should be 
spent in ascertaining the boundaries of Persia or 
China, knowing nothing all the while about the 
boundaries, the rivers, the soil, or the products, or 
of the any thing else of Yorkshire or Devonshire. 
The first thing in geography is to know that of 
the country in which we live, especially that in 
which we were born : I have now seen almost 



V.] TO A FATHER. 

every hill and valley in it with my own eyes ; 
nearly every city and every town, and no small 
part of the whole of the villages. I am there- 
fore qualified to give an account of the country ; 
and that account, under the title of Geographical 
Dictionary of England and Wales, I am now 
having printed as a companion to my history. 

322. When a young man well understands the 
geography of his own country ; when he has re- 
ferred to maps on this smaller scale ; when, in 
short, he knows all about his own country, and is 
able to apply his knowledge to useful purposes, 
he may look at other countries, and particularly 
at those, the powers or measures of which are 
likely to affect his own country. It is of great 
importance to us to be well acquainted with the 
extent of France, the United States, Portugal, 
Spain, Mexico, Turkey, and Russia; but what 
need we care about the tribes of Asia and Africa, 
the condition of which can affect us no more than 
we would be affected by any thing that is passing 
in the moon ? 

323. When people have nothing useful to do, 
they may indulge their curiosity ; but, merely to 
read books, is not to be industrious, is not to 
study, and is not the way to become learned. 
Perhaps there are none more lazy, or more truly 
ignorant, than your everlasting readers. A book 
is an admirable excuse for sitting still ; and, a 
man who has constantly a newspaper, a magazine, 



cobbett's advice [Letter 

a review, or some book or other in his hand, gets, 
at last, his head stuffed with such a jumble, that 
he knows not what to think about any thing. An 
empty coxcomb, that wastes his time in dressing, 
strutting, or strolling about, and picking his teeth, 
is certainly a most despicable creature, but scarcely 
less so than a mere reader of books, who is, gene- 
rally, conceited, thinks himself wiser than other 
men, in proportion to the number of leaves that 
he has turned over. In short, a young man 
should bestow his time upon no book, the con- 
tents of which he cannot apply to some useful 
purpose. 

324. Books of travels, of biography, natural 
history, and particularly such as relate to agricul- 
ture and horticulture, are all proper, when leisure 
is afforded for them ; and the two last are useful 
to a very great part of mankind ; but, unless the 
subjects treated of are of some interest to us in 
our affairs, no time should be wasted upon them, 
when there are so many duties demanded at our 
hands by our families and our country. A man 
may read books for ever, and be an ignorant 
creature at last, and even the more ignorant for 
his reading. 

325. x\nd, with regard to young women, ever- 
lasting book-reading is absolutely a vice. When 
they once get into the habit, they neglect all 
other matters, and, in some cases, even their very 
dress. Attending to the affairs of the house : to 



V.J TO A FATHER. 

the washing, the baking, the brewing, the pre- 
servation and cooking of victuals, the manage- 
ment of the poultry and the garden ; these are 
their proper occupations. It is said (with what 
truth I know not) of the present Queen (wife of 
William IV.), that she was an active, excellent 
manager of her house. Impossible to bestow on 
her greater praise; and I trust that her example 
will have its due effect on the young women of 
the present day, who stand, but too generally, 
in need of that example. 

326. The great fault of the present generation, 
is, that, in all ranks, the notions of self-import- 
ance are too high. This has arisen from causes 
not visible to many, but the consequences are 
felt by all, and that, too, with great severity. 
There has been a general sublimating going on 
for many years. Not to put the word Esquire 
before the name of almost any man who is not a 
mere labourer or artisan, is almost an affront. 
Every merchant, every master-manufacturer, every 
dealer, if at all rich, is an Esquire ; squires' sons 
must be gentlemen, and squires' wives and daugh- 
ters ladies. If this were all; if it were merely a 
ridiculous misapplication of words, the evil would 
not be great ; but, unhappily, words lead to acts 
and produce things ; and the " young gentleman" 
is not easily to be moulded into a tradesman or a 
working farmer. And yet the world is too small 
to hold so many gentlemen and ladies. How 



cobbett's advice [Letter 

many thousands of young men have, at this mo- 
ment, cause to lament that they are not car- 
penters, or masons, or tailors, or shoemakers ; 
and hoW many thousands of those, that they have 
been bred up to wish to disguise their honest 
and useful, and therefore honourable, calling ! 
Rousseau observes, that men are happy, first, 
in proportion to their virtue, and next, in pro- 
portion to their independence ; and that, of all 
mankind, the artisan, or craftsman, is the most 
independent ; because he carries about, in his own 
hands and person, the means of gaining his live- 
lihood ; and that the more common the use of 
the articles on which he works, the more perfect 
his independence, " Where," says he, u there is 
" one man that stands in need of the talents of 
6C the dentist, there are a hundred thousand that 
ft want those of the people who supply the mat- 
P ter for the teeth to work on ; and for one who 
" wants a sonnet to regale his fancy, there are a 
ec million clamouring for men to make or mend 
" their shoes." Aye, and this is the reason, why 
shoemakers are proverbially the most indepen- 
dent part of the people, and why they, in gene- 
ral, show more public spirit than any other men. 
He who lives by a pursuit, be it what it may, 
which does not require a considerable degree of 
bodily labour, must, from the nature of things, 
be, more or less, a dependent ; and this is, indeed, 
the price which he pays for his exemption from 



V.] TO A FATHER. 

that bodily labour. He may arrive at riches, or 
fame, or both ; and this chance he sets against 
the certainty of* independence in humbler life. 
There always have been, there always will be, and 
there always ought to be, some men to take this 
chance : but to do this has become the fashion, 
and a fashion it is the most fatal that ever seized 
upon a community. 

327. With regard to young women, too, to 
sing, to play on instruments of music, to draw, 
to speak French, and the like, are very agreeable 
qualifications; but why should they all be musi- 
cians, and painters, and linguists? Why all of 
them ? Who, then, is there left to take care of 
the houses of farmers and traders ? But there is 
something in these "accomplishments" worse 
than this ; namely, that they think themselves 
too high for farmers and traders : and this, in 
fact, they are; much too high; and, therefore, 
the servant-girls step in and supply their place. 
If they could see their own interest, surely they 
would drop this lofty tone, and these lofty airs. 
It is, however, the fault of the parents, and par- 
ticularly of the father, whose duty it is to prevent 
them from imbibing such notions, and to show 
them, that the greatest honour they ought to 
aspire to is, thorough skill and care in the eco- 
nomy of a house. We are all apt to set too 
high a value on what we ourselves have done ; 
and I may do this ; but I do firmly believe, that 



cobbett's advice [Letter 

to cure any young woman of this fatal sublima- 
tion^ she has only patiently to read my Cottage 
Economy, written with an anxious desire to pro- 
mote domestic skill and ability in that sex, on 
whom so much of the happiness of man must 
always depend. A lady in Worcestershire told 
me, that until she read Cottage Economy she 
had never baked in the house, and had seldom had 
good beer ; that, ever since, she had looked after 
both herself; that the pleasure she had derived 
from it, was equal to the profit, and that the 
latter was very great. She said, that the article 
"on baking bread" was the part that roused her 
to the undertaking \ and, indeed; if the facts and 
arguments, there made use of, failed to stir her 
up to action, she must have been stone dead to 
the power of words. 

328. After the age that we have now been 
supposing, boys and girls become men and ivo~ 
men ; and, there now only remains for the father 
to act towards them with impartiality. If they 
be numerous, or, indeed, if they be only two in 
number, to expect perfect harmony to reign 
amongst, or between, them, is to be unreason- 
able} because experience shows us, that, even 
amongst the most sober, most virtuous, and most 
sensible, harmony so complete is very rare. By 
nature they are rivals for the affection and ap- 
plause of the parents \ in personal and mental 
endowments they become rivals ; and, when pe- 



V.] TO A FATHER. 

cuniary interests come to be well understood 
and to have their weight, here is a rivalship, to 
prevent which from ending in hostility, require 
more affection and greater disinterestedness than 
fall to the lot of one out of one hundred fami- 
lies. So many instances have I witnessed of 
good and amiable families living in harmony, 
till the hour arrived for dividing property 
amongst them, and then, all at once, becoming 
hostile to eacn other, that I have often thought 
that property, coming in such a way, was a 
curse, and that the parties would have been far 
better off, had the parent had merely a blessing 
to bequeath them from his or her lips, instead of 
a wiil for them to dispute and wrangle over. 

329. With regard to this matter, all that the 
father can do, is to be impartial ; but, impartial- 
ity' does not mean positive equality in the distri- 
bution, but equality in proportion to the different 
deserts of the parties, their different wants, their 
different pecuniary circumstances, and different 
prospects in life ; and these vary so much, in dif- 
ferent families, that it is impossible to lay down 
any general rule upon the subject. But there is 
one fatal error, against which every father ought 
to guard his heart; and the kinder that heart is, 
the more necessary such guardianship. I mean 
the fatal error of heaping upon one child, to the 
prejudice of the rest; or, upon a part of them. 
This partiality sometimes arises from mere caprice; 



cobbett's abvice [Letter 

sometimes from the circumstance of the favourite 
being more favoured by nature than the rest; 
sometimes from the nearer resemblance to him- 
self, that the father sees in the favourite; and, 
sometimes, from the hope of preventing the fa- 
voured party from doing that which would dis- 
grace the parent. All these motives are highly 
censurable, but the last is the most general, and 
by far the most mischievous in its effects. How 
many fathers have been ruined, how many mothers 
and families brought to beggary, how many in- 
dustrious and virtuous groups have been pulled 
down from competence to penury, from the de- 
sire to prevent one from bringing shame on the 
parent ! So that, contrary to every principle of 
justice, the bad is rewarded for the badness 3 and 
the good punished for the goodness. Natural 
affection, remembrance of infantine endearments, 
reluctance to abandon long-cherished hopes^ 
compassion for the sufferings of your own flesh 
and blood, the dread of fatal consequences from 
your adhering to justice; all these beat at your 
heart, and call on you to give way : but, you must 
resist them all; or, your ruin, and that of the rest 
of your family, are decreed. Suffering is the 
natural and just punishment of idleness, drunk- 
enness, squandering, and an indulgence in the 
society of prostitutes; and, never did the world 
behold an instance of an offender, in this way, 
reclaimed but by the infliction of this punishment; 



V,] TO A FATHER. 

particularly, if the society of prostitutes made 
part of the offence ; for, here is something that 
takes the heart from you. Nobody ever yet saw, 
and nobody ever will see, a young man, linked to 
a prostitute, and retain, at the same time, any, 
even the smallest degree of affection, for parents 
or brethren. You may supplicate, you may im- 
plore, you may leave yourself pennyless, and your 
virtuous children without bread ; the invisible 
cormorant will still call for more ; and, as we 
saw, only the other day, a wretch was convicted 
of having, at the instigation of his prostitute, 
beaten his aged mother, to get from her the small 
remains of the means necessary to provide her 
with food. In Heron's collection of God's judg- 
ments on wicked acts, it is related of an unna- 
tural son, who fed his aged father upon orts and 
offal, lodged him in a filthy and crazy garret, and 
clothed him in sackcloth, while he and his wife 
and children lived in luxury; that, having bought 
sackcloth enough for two dresses for his father, 
the children took away the part not made up, 
and hid it, and that, upon asking them what they 
could do this for, they told him that they meant 
to keep it for him, when he should become old 
and walk with a stick ! This, the author relates, 
pierced his heart ; and, indeed, if this failed, 
he must have had the heart of a tiger; but, 
even this would not succeed with the associ- 
ate of a prostitute. When this vice, this love 



cobbett's advice [Letter 

of the society of prostitutes; when this vice has 
once got fast hold, vain are all your sacrifices, 
vain your prayers, vain your hopes, vain your 
anxious desire to disguise the shame from the 
world ; and, if you have acted well your part, no 
part of that shame falls on you, unless you have 
administered to the cause of it. Your authority 
has ceased ; the voice of the prostitute, or the 
charms of the bottle, or the rattle of the dice, 
has been more powerful than your advice and 
example : you must lament this : but, it is not 
to bow you down ; and, above all things, it is 
weak, and even criminally selfish, to sacrifice the 
rest of your family, in order to keep from the 
world the knowledge of that, which, if known, 
would, in your view of the matter, bring shame 
on yourself. 

330. Let me hope, however, that this is a 
calamity which will befall very few good fathers \ 
and that, of all such, the sober, industrious, and 
frugal habits of their children, their dutiful de- 
meanor, their truth and their integrity, will come 
to smooth the path of their downward days, and 
be the objects on which their eyes will close. 
Those children must, in their turn, travel the 
same path ; and they may be assured, that, 
" Honour thy father and thy mother, that thy 
days may be long in the land," is a precept, a 
disregard of which never yet failed, either first 
or last, to bring its punishment. And, what can 



V.] TO A FATHER. 

be more just than that signal punishment should 
follow such a crime \ a crime directly against the 
voice of nature itself? Youth has its passions, 
and due allowance justice will make for these \ 
but, are the delusions of the boozer, the game- 
ster, or the harlot, to be pleaded in excuse for a 
disregard of the source of your existence ? Are 
those to be pleaded in apology for giving pain to 
the father who has toiled half a life-time in order 
to feed and clothe you, and to the mother whose 
breast has been to you the fountain of life ? Go, 
you, and shake the hand of the boon-compa- 
nion \ take the greedy harlot to your arms ; 
mock at the tears of your tender and anxious 
parents ; and, when your purse is empty and 
your complexion faded, receive the poverty and 
the scorn due to your base ingratitude ! 



u 



LETTER VI. 

TO THE CITIZEN. 

331. Having now given my Advice to the 
Youth, the grown-up Man, the Lover, the 
Husband and the Father, I shall, in this con- 
cluding Number, tender my Advice to the Citi- 
zen, in which capacity every man has rights to 
enjoy and duties to perform, and these too of 
importance not inferior to those which belong to 
him, or are imposed upon him, as son, parent, 
husband or father. The word citizen is not, in 
its application, confined to the mere inhabitants 
of cities : it means, a member of a civil society, 
or community ; and, in order to have a clear 
comprehension of man's rights and duties in this 
capacity, we must take a look at the origin of 
civil communities. 

332. Time was when the inhabitants of this 
island, for instance, laid claim to all things in it, 
without the words owner ox property being known. 
God had given to all the people all the land and 
all the trees, and every thing else, just as he has 
given the burrows and the grass to the rabbits, 
and the bushes and the berries to the birds; and 
each man had the good things of this world in a 
greater or less degree in proportion to his skill, 
his strength and his valour. This is what is 
called living under the Law of Nature ; that 
is to say, the law of self-preservation and self- 



TO A CITIZEN. 

enjoyment, without any restraint imposed by a 
regard for the good of our neighbours. 

333. In process of time, no matter from what 
cause, men made amongst themselves a compact, 
or an agreement, to divide the land and its pro- 
ducts in such manner that each should have a 
share to his own exclusive use, and that each man 
should be protected in the exclusive enjoyment of 
his share by the united power of the rest ; and, 
in order to ensure the due and certain application 
of thus united power, the whole of the people 
agreed to be bound by regulations, called Laws. 
Thus arose civil society; thus arose property; 
thus arose the words mine and thine. One man 
became possessed of more good things than an- 
other, because he was more industrious, more 
skilful, more careful, or more frugal: so that 
labour, of one sort or another, was the basis of 
all property. 

334. In what manner civil societies proceeded 
in providing for the making of laws and for the 
enforcing of them ; the various ways in which 
they took measures to protect the weak against 
the strong ; how they have gone to work to secure 
wealth against the attacks of poverty; these are 
subjects that it would require volumes to detail ; 
but these truths are written on the heart of man : 
that all men are, by nature 3 equal ; that civil so- 
ciety can never have arisen from any motive other 
than that of the benefit of the whole; that, 
whenever civil society makes the greater part of 

u 2 



cobbett's advice [Letter 

the people worse off than they were under the 
Law of Nature, the civil compact is, in conscience, 
dissolved, and all the rights of nature return ; 
that, in civil society, the rights and the duties go 
hand in hand, and that, when the former are 
taken away, the latter cease to exist. 

335. Now, then, in order to act well our part, 
as citizens, or members of the community, we 
ought clearly to understand what our rights are ; 
for, on our enjoyment of these depend our duties, 
rights going before duties, as value received goes 
before payment. I know well, that just the con- 
trary of this is taught in our political schools, 
where we are told, that our first duty is to obey 
the laws ; and it is not many years ago, that 
Horsley, Bishop of Rochester, told us, that the 
people had nothing to do with the laws but to 
obey them. The truth is, however, that the citi- 
zen's first duty is to maintain his rights, as it is 
the purchaser's first duty to receive the thing for 
which he has contracted. 

336. Our rights in society are numerous ; the 
right of enjoying life and property \ the right of 
exerting our physical and mental powers in an 
innocent manner \ but, the great right of all, and 
without which there is, in fact, no right, is, the 
right of taking a part in the making of the laws 
hy ivhich ive are governed. This right is founded 
in that law of Nature spoken of above \ it springs 
out of the very principle of civil society; for what 
mmpact what agreement, what common assent, 

- 



VI.] 



TO A CITIZEN. 



can possibly be imagined by which men would 
give up all the rights of nature/ all the free en- 
joyment, of their bodies and their minds, in order 
to subject themselves to rules and laws, in the 
making of which they should have nothing to say, 
and which should be enforced upon them without 
their assent? The great right, therefore, of every 
man, the right of rights, is the right of having a 
share in the making of the laws, to which the 
good of the whole makes it his duty to submit. 

337. With regard to the means of enabling 
every man to enjoy this share, they have been 
different, in different countries, and, in the same 
countries, at different times. .Generally it has 
been, and in great communities it must be, by 
the choosing of a few to speak and act in behalf 
of the many : and, as there will hardly ever be 
perfect unanimity amongst men assembled for 
any purpose whatever, where fact and argument 
are to decide the question, the decision is left to 
the majority, the compact being that the deci- 
sion of the majority shall be that of the whole. 
Minors are excluded from this right, because the 
law considers them as infants, because it makes 
the parent answerable for civil damages com- 
mitted by them, and because of their legal inca- 
pacity to make any compact. Women are ex- 
cluded because husbands are answerable in law 
for their wives, as to their civil damages, and 
because the very nature of their sex makes the 
exercise of this right incompatible with the har- 
mony and happiness of society. Men stained 



cgkbett's advice [Letter 

with indelible crimes are excluded, because they 
have forfeited their right by violating the laws, 
to which their assent has been given. Insane 
persons are excluded, because they are dead in 
the eye of the law, because the law demands no 
duty at their hands, because they cannot violate 
the law, because the law cannot affect them ; and, 
therefore, they ought to have no hand in making it. 
338. But, with these exceptions, where is the 
ground whereon to maintain that any man ought 
to be deprived of this right, which he derives 
directly from the law of Nature, and which 
springs, as I said before, out of the same source 
with civil society itself? Am I told, that pro- 
perty ought to confer this right ? Property sprang 
from labour, and not labour from property ; so 
that if there were to be a distinction here, it 
ought to give the preference to labour. All men 
are equal by nature ; nobody denies that they all 
ought to be equal in the eye of the law ; but, 
how are they to be thus equal, if the law begin 
by suffering some to enjoy this right and refusing 
the enjoyment to others ? It is the duty of every 
man to defend his country against an enemy, a 
duty imposed by the law of Nature as well as by 
that of civil society, and without the recognition 
of this duty, there could exist no independent 
nation and no civil society. Yet, how are you 
to maintain that this is the duty of every man, if 
you deny to some men the enjoyment of a share 
in making the laws ? Upon what principle are 
you to contend for equality here, while you deny 



VI.] TO A CITIZEN. 

its existence as to the .right of sharing in the 
making of the laws ? The poor man has a body 
and a soul as well as the rich man ; like the 
latter, he has parents, wife and children ; a ballet 
or a sword is as deadly to him as to the rich 
man ; there are hearts to ache and tears to flow 
for him as well as for the squire or the lord or 
the loan- monger: yet, notwithstanding this. equa- 
lity, he is to risk all, and, if he escape, he is still 
to be denied an equality of rights ! If, in such 
a state of things, the artisan or labourer, when 
called out to fight in defence of his country, were 
to answer : " Why should I risk my life ? I have 
(( no possession but my labour ; no enemy will 
H take that from me; you, the rich, possess all 
" the land and all its products ; you make what 
a laws you please without my participation or 
" assent; you punish me at your pleasure; you 
c: say that my want of property excludes me from 
iS the right of having a share in the making of 
" the laws; you say that the property that I have 
" in my labour is nothing ivorth ; on what 
" ground, then, do you call on me to risk my 
" life ? u If, in such a case, such questions were 
put, the answer is very difficult to be imagined. 

339. In cases of civil commotion the matter 
comes still more home to us. On what ground 
is the rich man to call the artisan from his shop 
or the labourer from the field to join the sheriff's 
posse or the militia, if he refuse to the labourer 
and artisan the right of sharing in the making of 
the laws ? Why are they to risk their lives here ? 



cobbett's advice [Letter 

To uphold the laws, and to protect property. 
What ! laics, in the making of, or assenting to, 
which they have been allowed to have no share ? 
Property, of which they are said to possess none? 
What ! compel men to come forth and risk their 
lives for the protection of property ; and then, 
in the same breath, tell them, that they are not 
allowed to share in the making of the laws, be- 
cause, and ONLY BECAUSE, they have no pro- 
perty ! Not because they have committed any 
crime ; not because they are idle or profligate ; 
not because thev are vicious in any wav; but 
solely because they have no property ; and yet, 
at the same time, compel them to come forth and 
risk their lives for the protection of property 1 

340. But, the paupers ? Ought they to share 
in the making of the law r s ? And why not ? 
What is a pauper ; what is one of the men to 
whom this degrading appellation is applied ? A 
very poor man ; a man who is, from some cause 
or other, unable to supply himself with food and 
raiment without aid from the parish-rates. And, 
is that circumstance alone to deprive him of his 
right, a right of which he stands more in need 
than any other man ? Perhaps he has, for many 
years of his life, contributed directly to those 
rates j and ten thousand to one he has, by his 
labour, contributed to them indirectly. The aid 
which, under such circumstances, he receives, is 
his right ; he receives it not as an alms : he is 
no mendicant ; he begs not; he comes to receive 
that which the law of the country awards him 



VI.] TO A CITIZEN. 

in lieu of the larger portion assigned him by the 
law of Nature. Pray mark that, and let it be 
deeply engraven on your memory. The auda- 
cious and merciless Malthus (a parson of the 
church establishment) recommended, some years 
ago, the passing of a law to put an end to the 
giving of parish relief, though he recommended 
no law to put an end to the enormous taxes paid 
by poor people. In his book he said, that the 
poor should be left to the law of Nature, which, 
in case of their having nothing to buy food with, 
doomed them to starve. They would ask nothing 
better than to be left to the law of Nature ; that 
law which knows nothing about buying food or 
any thing else ; that law which bids the hungry 
and the naked take food and raiment wherever 
they find it best and nearest at hand ; that law 
which awards all possessions to the strongest ; 
that law the operations of which would clear out 
the London meat-markets and the drapers' and 
jewellers' shops in about half an hour : to this 
law the parson wished the parliament to leave the 
poorest of the working people ; but, if the par- 
liament had done it, it would have been quickly 
seen, that this law was far from " dooming them 
to be starved." 

341. Trusting that it is unnecessary for me to 
express a hope, that barbarous thoughts like 
those of Malthus and his tribe will never be en- 
tertained by any young man who has read the 
previous Numbers of this work, let me return to 
u5 



cobbett s advice [Letter 

n 

my very, very poor man, and ask, whether it be 
consistent with justice, with humanity, with rea- 
son, to deprive a man of the most precious of his 
political rights, because, and only because, he has 
been, in a pecuniary way, singularly unfortunate ? 
The Scripture says, " Despise not the poor, be- 
cause he is poor j" that is to say, despise him not 
on account of his poverty. Why, then, deprive him 
of his right ; why put him out of the pale of the 
law, on account of his poverty ? There are some 
men, to be sure, who are reduced to poverty by 
their vices, by idleness, by gaming, by drinking, 
by squandering; but, the far greater part by 
bodily ailments, by misfortunes to the effects of 
which all men may, without any fault, and even 
without any folly, be exposed : and, is there a 
man on earth so cruelly unjust as to wish to add 
to the sufferings of such persons by stripping them 
of their political rights ? How t many thousands of 
industrious and virtuous men have, within these 
few years, been brought down from a state of com- 
petence to that of pauperism ! And, is it just to 
strip such men of their rights, merely because 
they are thus brought down ? When I was at 
Ely, last spring, there w T ere, in that neighbour- 
hood, three paupers cracking stones on the roads, 
who had all three been, not only rate-payers, but 
overseers of the poor, within seven years of the 
day when I was there. Is there any man so bar- 
barous as to say, that these men ought, merely 
on account of their misfortunes, to be deprived of 



VI.l TO A CITIZEN. 

J 

their political rights ? Their right to receive relief 
is as perfect as any right of property ; and, would 
you, merely because they claim this right, strip 
them of another right ? To say no more of the 
injustice and the cruelty, is there reason, is there 
common sense in this ? What ! if a farmer or 
tradesman be, by flood or by fire, so totally ruined 
as to be compelled, surrounded by his family, to 
resort to the parish-book, would you break the 
last heart-string of such a man by making him 
feel the degrading loss of his political rights ? 

342. Here, young man of sense and of spirit ; 
here is the point on which you are to take your 
stand. There are always men enough to plead 
the cause of the rich ; enough and enough to echo 
the woes of the fallen great ; but, be it your part 
to show compassion for those who labour, and to 
maintain their rights. Poverty is not a crime, 
and, though it sometimes arises from faults, it is 
not, even in that case, to be visited by punishment 
beyond that which it brings with itself. Remem- 
ber, that poverty is decreed by the very nature of 
man. The Scripture says, that " the poor shall 
never cease from out of the land ;" that is to say, 
that there shall always be some very poor people. 
This is inevitable from the very nature of things. 
It is necessary to the existence of mankind, that 
a very large portion of every people should live 
by manual labour \ and, as such labour is pain, 
more or less, and as no living creature likes pain, 
it must be, that the far greater part of labouring 
people will endure only just as much of this pain 



cobbett's advice [Letter 

as is absolutely necessary to the supply of their 
daily wants. Experience says that this has al- 
ways been, and reason and nature tell us, that 
this must always be. Therefore,, when ailments, 
when losses, when untoward circumstances of 
any sort, stop or diminish the daily supply, zvant 
comes ; and every just government will provide, 
from the general stock, the means to satisfy this 
want. 

• 343. Nor is the deepest poverty without its 
useful effects in society. To the practice of the 
virtues of abstinence, sobriety, care, frugality, in- 
dustry, and even honesty and amiable manners 
and acquirement of talent, the two great motives 
are, to get upwards in riches or fame, and to avoid 
going dmonivards to poverty, the last of which is 
the most powerful of the two. It is, therefore, 
not with contempt, but with compassion, that we 
should look on those, whose state is one of the 
decrees of nature, from whose sad example we 
profit, and to whom, in return, we ought to make 
compensation by every indulgent and kind act in 
our power, and particularly by a defence of their 
rights. To those who labour, we, who labour 
not with our hands, owe all that we eat, drink 
and wear ; all that shades us by day and that 
shelters us by night ; all the means of enjoying 
health and pleasure; and, therefore, if we possess 
talent for the task, we are ungrateful or cowardly, 
or both, if we omit any effort within our power to 
prevent them from being slaves ; and, disguise 
the matter how we, may, a slave, a real slave. 



VI.] TO A CITIZEN. 

every man is, who has no share in making the 
laws which he is compelled to obey. 

344. What is a slave? For, let us not be 
amused by a name ; but look well into the matter. 
A slave is, in the first place, a man who has no 
propei % ty ; and property means something that 
he has, and that nobody can take from him with- 
out his leave, or consent. Whatever man, no 
matter what he may call himself or any body else 
may call him, can have his money or his goods 
taken from him by force, by virtue of an order, 
or ordinance, or law, which he has had no hand 
in making, and to which he has not given his 
assent, has no property, and is merely a deposi- 
tary of the goods of his master. A slave has no 
property in his labour ; and any man who is 
compelled to give up the fruit of his labour to an- 
other, at the arbitrary will of that other, has no 
property in his labour, and is, therefore, a slave, 
whether the fruit of his labour be taken from him 
directly or indirectly. If it be said, that he gives 
up this fruit of his labour by his own will, and that 
it is not forced from him. I answer, To be sure he 
may avoid eating and drinking and may go naked ; 
but, then he must die; and on this condition, and 
this condition only, can he refuse to give up the 
fruit of his labour ; " Die, wretch, or surrender as 
much of your income, or the fruit of your labour 
as your masters choose to take." This is, in fact, 
the language of the rulers to every man who is 
refused to have a share in the making of the laws 
to which he is forced to submit. ctf stU 



cobbett's advice [Letter 

345. But, some one may say^ slaves are private 
property, and may be bought and sold, out and 
out, like cattle. And, what is it to the slave, 
whether he be property of one or of many ; or, 
what matters it to him, whether he pass from 
master to master by a sale for an indefinite term, 
or be let to hire by the year, month, or week ? It 
is, in no case, the flesh and blood and bones that 
are sold, but the labour ; and, if you actually sell 
the labour of man, is not that man a slave, though 
you sell it for only a short time at once ? And, as 
to the principle, so ostentatiously displayed in the 
case of the black slave trade, that cC man ought 
not to have a property in man," it is even an ad- 
vantage to the slave to be private property, be- 
cause the owner has then a clear and powerful 
interest in the preservation of his life, health and 
strength, and will, therefore, furnish him amply 
with the food and raiment necessary for these ends. 
Every one knows, that public property is never so 
well taken care of as private property ; and this,too, 
on the maxim, that " that which is every body's 
business is no nobody's business. " Every one 
• knows that a rented farm is not so well kept in 
heart, as a farm in the hands of the owner. And, 
as to punishments and restraints, what difference is 
there, whether these be inflicted and imposed by a 
-private owner, or his overseer, or by the agents and 
overseers of a body of proprietors ? In short, if you 
can cause a man to be imprisoned or whipped if he 
do not work enough to please you ; if you can sell 
him by auction for a time limited ; if you can for- 



VI.] TO A CITIZEN. 

cibly separate him from his wife to prevent their 
having children ; if you can shut him up in his 
dwelling place when you please, and for as long a 
time as you please ; if you can force him to draw 
a cart or wagon like a beast of draught ; if you 
can, when the humour seizes you, and at the sug- 
gestion of your mere fears, or whim, cause him to 
be shut up in a dungeon during your pleasure : if 
you can, at your pleasure, do these things to him, 
is it not to be impudently hypocritical to affect 
to call him a free-man? But, after all, these may 
all be wanting, and yet the man be a slave, if he 
be allowed to have no property ; and, as I have 
shown, no property he can have, not even in that 
labour, which is not only property, but the basis of 
all other property, unless he have a share in mak- 
ing the laws to which he is compelled to submit. 

346. It is said, that he may have this share 
virtually though not in form and name ; for that 
his employers may have such share, and they will, 
as a matter of course, act for him. This doc- 
trine, pushed home, would make the chief 'of the 
nation the sole maker of the laws ; for, if the 
rich can thus act for the poor, why should not 
the chief act for the rich ? This matter is very 
completely explained by the practice in the 
United States of America. There the maxim 
is, that every free man, with the exception of 
men stained with crime and men insane, has a 
right to have a voice in choosing those who 
make the laws. The number of Representatives 
sent to the Congress is, in each State, propor- 



cobbktt's AmacE [Ikeitfer j 

tioned to the number of 'free people. But/ as 
there are slaves in some of the States, these States 
have a certain portion of additional numbers on 
account of those slaves ! Thus the slaves are 
represented by their owners ; and this is real, 
practical, open and undisguised virtual repre- 
sentation ! No doubt that white men may be 
represented in the same way ; for the colour of 
the skin is nothing; but let them be called slaves^ 
then ; let it not be pretended that they are free 
men; let not the word liberty he polluted by being- 
applied to their state ; let it be openly and ho- 
nestly avowed, as in America, that they are 
slaves; and then will come the question whether 
men ought to exist in such a state, or whether 
they ought to do every thing in their power to 
rescue themselves from it. 

347. If the right to have a share in making 
the laws were merely a feather; if it were a fan- 
ciful thing; if it were only a speculative theory; 
if it were but an abstract principle ; on any of 
these suppositions, it might be considered as of 
little importance. But it is none of these; it 
is a practical matter ; the want of it not only is, 
but must of necessity be, felt by every man who 
lives under that want. If it were proposed to the 
shopkeepers in a town, that a rich man or two, 
living in the neighbourhood, should have power 
to send, whenever they pleased, and take away 
as much as they pleased of the money of the 
shopkeepers, and apply it to what uses they 
please ; what an outcry the shopkeepers would 



VI.] TO A CITIZEN. 

make ! And yet, what would this be more than 
taxes imposed on those who have no voice in 
choosing the persons who impose them? Who 
lets another man put his hand into his purse 
when he pleases ? Who, that has the power to 
help himself, surrenders his goods or his money 
to the will of another ? Has it not always been, 
and must it not always be, true, that, if your pro- 
perty be at the absolute disposal of others, your 
ruin is certain ? And if this be, of necessity, 
the case amongst individuals and parts of the 
community, it must be the case with regard to 
the whole community, 

348. Aye, and experience shows us that it 
always has been the case. The natural and 
inevitable consequences of a want of this right 
in the people have, in all countries, been taxes 
pressing the industrious and laborious to the 
earth ; severe laws and standing armies to compel 
the people to submit to those taxes 5 wealth, 
luxury, and splendour, amongst those who make 
the laws and receive the taxes ; poverty, misery, 
immorality and crime, amongst those who bear 
the burdens ; and at last commotion, revolt, re- 
venge, and rivers of blood. Such have always 
been, and such must always be, the consequences 
of a want of this right of all men to share in the 
making of the laws, a right, as I have before 
shown, derived immediately from the law of Na- 
ture, springing up out of the same source with 
civil society, and cherished in the heart of man 
by reason and by experience. 



cobbett's advice [Letter 

349. Well, then, this right being that, without 
the enjoyment of which there is, in reality, no 
right at all, how manifestly is it the first duty of 
every man to do all in his power to maintain this 
right where it exists, and to restore it where it has 
been lost ? For observe, it must, at one time, 
have existed in every civil community, it being 
impossible that it could ever be excluded by any 
social compact ; absolutely impossible, because 
it is contrary to the law of self-preservation to 
believe, that men would agree to give up the 
rights of nature without stipulating for some 
benefit. Before we can affect to believe that 
this right was not reserved, in such compact, as 
completely as the right to live was reserved, we 
must affect to believe, that millions of men 5 
under no control but that of their own passions 
and desires, and having all the earth and its pro- 
ducts at the command of their strength and skill, 
consented to be for ever, they and their posterity, 
the slaves of a few. 

350. We cannot believe this, and therefore, 
without going back into history and precedents, 
we must believe, that, in whatever civil com- 
munity this right does not exist, it has been 
lost, or rather, unjustly taken away. And then* 
having seen the terrible evils which always have 
arisen, and always must arise, from the want of 
it; being convinced that, where lost or taken 
away by force or fraud, it is our very first duty to 
do all in our power to restore it, the next consi- 
deration is, how one ought to act in the discharge 



I J TO A CITIZEN. 

of this most sacred duty ; for sacred it is even as 
the duties of husband and father. For, besides 
the baseness of the thought of quietly submitting 
to be a slave oneself \ we have here, besides our 
duty to the community, a duty to perform to- 
wards our children and our children's children. 
We all acknowledge that it is our bounden duty 
to provide, as far as our power will go, for the 
competence, the health, -and the good character 
of our children \ but, is this duty superior to that 
of which I am now speaking ? What is compe- 
tence,, what is health, if the possessor be a slave, 
and hold his possessions at the will of another, 
or others ; as he must do if destitute of the right 
to a share in the making of the laws? What is 
competence, what is health, if both can, at any 
moment, be snatched away by the grasp or the 
dungeon of a master j and his master he is who 
makes the laws without his participation or 
assent ? And, as to character, as to fair fame, 
when the white slave puts forward pretensions to 
those, let him no longer affect to commiserate 
the state of his sleek and fat brethren in Barba- 
does and Jamaica 3 let him hasten to mix the 
hair with the wool, to blend the white with the 
black, and to lose the memory of his origin 
amidst a dingy generation. 

351. Such, then, being the nature of the duty, 
fiow are we to go to work in the performance of 
it, and what are our means ? With regard to 
these, so various are the circumstances, so end- 
less the differences in the states of society, and 



or av 

cobbett's advice [Letter 

ro^ rfoug 
so many are the cases when it would be madness 

to attempt that which it would be prudence to 
attempt in others, that no general rule can be 
given beyond this ; that, the right and the duty 
being clear to our minds, the means that are 
surest and swiftest are the best. In every sucl 
case, however, the great and predominant desire 
ought to be not to employ any means beyonc 
those of reason and persuasion, as long as the 
employment of these afford a ground for rational 
expectation of success. Men are, in such a case, 
labouring, not for the present day only, but forages 
to come; and therefore they should not slacken 
in their exertions, because the grave may close 
upon them before the day of final triumph arrive. 
Amongst the virtues of the good Citizen are those 
of fortitude and patience; and, when he has to 
carry on his struggle against corruptions deep and 
widely-rooted, he is not to expect the baleful 
tree to come down at a single blow.; he must 
patiently remove the earth that props and feeds 
it. and sever the accursed roots one bv one. 

352. Impatience here is a very bad sign. I 
do not like your patriots, who, because the tree 
does not give way at once, fall to blaming all 
about them, accuse their fellow- sufferers of cow- 
ardice, because they do not do that which they 
themselves dare not think of doing. Such con- 
duct argues chagrin and disappointment; and 
these argue a selfish feeling : they argue, that 
there has been more of private ambition and gain 
at work than of public good. Such blamers^ 



VJ.] TO A CITIZEN. 

J] 

such general accusers, are always to be suspected. 
What does the real patriot want more than to 
feel conscious that he has done his duty towards 
his country; and that, if life should not allow 
him time to see his endeavours crowned with 
success, his children will see it ? The impatient 
patriots are like the young men (mentioned in 
the beautiful fable of La Fontaine) who ridi- 
culed the man of fourscore, who was planting an 
avenue of very small trees, which, they told him, 
that he never could expect to see as high- as his 
head. " Well," said he, " and what of that ? 
■ If their shade afford me no pleasure, it may 
"afford pleasure to my children, and even to 
• you; and, therefore, the planting of them gives 
" me pleasure." 

353. It is the want of the noble disinterested- 
ness, so beautifully expressed in this fable, that 
produces the impatient patriots. They wish very 
well to their country, because they want some of 
the good for themselves. Very natural that all 
men should wish to see the good arrive, and 
wish to share in it too ; but, we must look on 
the dark side of nature to find the disposition to 
cast blame on the whole community because our 
wishes are not instantly accomplished, and espe- 
cially to cast blame on others for not doing that 
which we ourselves dare not attempt. There is, 
however, a sort of patriot a great deal worse than 
this; he, who having failed himself, would see 
his country enslaved for ever, rather than see its 
deliverance achieved by others. His failure has, 






cobbett's advice [Letter 

perhaps, arisen solely from his want of talent, or 
discretion; yet his selfish heart would wish his 
country sunk in everlasting degradation, lest his 
inefficiency for the task should be established by 
the success of others. A very hateful character, 
certainly, but, I am sorry to say, by no means rare. 
Envy, always associated with meanness of soul, 
always detestable, is never so detestable as when 
it shows itself here, 

354. Be it your care, my young friend (and I 
tender you this as my parting advice), if you find 
this base and baleful passion, which the poet calls 
'" the eldest born of hell ;" if you find it creeping 
into your heart, be it your care to banish it at 
once and for ever ; for, if once it nestle there, 
farewell to all the good which nature has enabled 
you to do, and to your peace into the bargain. 
It has pleased God to make an unequal distribu* 
tion of talent, of industry, of perseverance, of a 
capacity to labour, of all the qualities that give 5 
men distinction. We have not been our own 
makers : it is no fault in you that nature has 
placed him above you, and, surely, it is no fault 
in him 3 and would you punish him on account, 
and only on account, of his pre-eminence ! If you 
have read this book you will startle with horror 
at the thought : you will, as to public matters, act 
with zeal and with good humour, though the 
place you occupy be far removed from the first ; 
you will support with the best of your abilities 
others, who, from whatever circumstance, may 
happen to take the lead; you will not suffer even 



VI.] TO A CITIZEN. 

the consciousness and the certainty of your own 
superior talents to urge you to do any thing which 
might by possibility be injurious to your country's 
cause; you will be forbearing under the aggres- 
sions of ignorance, conceit, arrogance, and even 
the blackest of ingratitude superadded, if by re- 
senting these you endanger the general good \ 
and, above all things, you will have the justice to 
bear in mind, that that country which gave you 
birth, is, to the last hour of your capability, en- 
titled to your exertions in her behalf, and that 
you ought not, by acts of commission or of omis- 
sion, to visit upon her the wrongs which may have ' 
been inflicted on you by the envy and malice of 
individuals. Love of one's native soil is a feeling 
which nature has implanted in the human breast, 
and that has always been peculiarly strong in the 
breasts of Englishmen. God has given us a coun- 
try of which to be proud, and that freedom, 
greatness and renown, which were handed down 
to us by our wise and brave forefathers, bid us 
perish to the last man, rather than suffer the land 
of their graves to become a land of slavery, im- 
potence and dishonour. 

355. In the words with which 1 concluded my 
English Grammar, which I addressed to my son 
James, I conclude my advice to you. " With 
t6 English and French on your tongue and in your 
" pen, you have a resource, not only greatly va- 
u luable in itself, but a resource that you can be 
" deprived of by none of those changes and 
u chances which deprive men of pecuniary pos- 



COBBETT S ADVICE TO A CITIZEN. 

u sessions, and which, in some cases, make the 
<c purse- proud man of yesterday a crawling sy- 
4C cophant to-day. Health, without which life is 
xc not worth having, you will hardly fail to secure 
4( by early rising, exercise, sobriety, and abste- 
*i miousness as to food. Happiness, or misery, 
*' is in the mind. It is the mind that lives ; and 
" the length of life ought to be measured by the 
" number and importance of our ideas, and not 
" by the number of our days. Never, therefore, 
C€ esteem men merely on account of their riches 
u or their station. Respect goodness, find it 
" where you may. Honour talent wherever you 
u behold it unassociated with vice ; but, honour 
i{ it most when accompanied with exertion, and 
" especially when exerted in the cause of truth 
**■ and justice j and, above all things, hold it in 
" honour, when it steps forward to protect de- 
u fenceless innocence against the attacks of 
" powerful guilt." These words, addressed to 
my own son, I now, in taking my leave, address 
to you. Be just, be industrious, be sober, and be 
happy; and the hope that these effects will, 
in some degree, have been caused by this little 
work, will add to the happiness of 

Your friend and humble servant, 

Wm. COBBETT, 

Kensington, 25th Aug. 1830. 

THE END. 



Printed by Mills, Jowelt, and Mills, Bolt-court, Fleet-street. 



A 

SKETCH 

OF 

THE PRINCIPAL MEANS 

WHICH HAVE BEEN EMPLOYED 
TO AMELIORATE 

ti$t gjttteitotual anti £&oval ^ontrtttott 

OF 

THE WORKING CLASSES 

AT 

BIRMINGHAM, 
BY WILLIAM MATTHEWS. 



" While animated by some magnanimous sentiments which he has heard or read, 
)r while musing on some great example, a man may conceive the design, and partly 
sketch the plan of a generous enterprise ; and his imagination revels in the felicity 
.hat would follow to others, and to himself from its accomplishment." 

Foster's Essay on Decision of Character, 



LONDON : 
SIMPKIN AND MARSHALL, 

stationers' hall court. 
1830. 



ADVERTISEMENT. 

The following narration of the efforts heretofore made to 
improve the mental and moral condition of the Working 
Classes at Birmingham, was prefixed to my cc Historical Sketch 
of the Origin, Progress, Sfc, of Gas Lighting ; " and though 
pride and prejudice may perhaps view 

" with a disdainful smile, 

The short, but simple, annals of the poor," 
yet the perusal having led some benevolent and intelligent 
persons to attribute the present intellectual character of the 
town, and the orderly conduct of its great population to 
several of the circumstances related, I have been urged to 
print it separately, with the addition of a few paragraphs 
and illustrative notes. Besides those mentioned at its first 
publication in October 1827, the Society of Arts , the Mecha- 
nics 9 Institution, the School of Medicine and Surgery, and va- 
rious other useful institutions, which have been established, 
favourably display the progress of taste and intellectual cul- 
tivation among the residents of Birmingham ; and may the 
persevere in their endeavours to be conspicuous in the caree 
of improvement i 
June 1, 1830. 



A SKETCH, 



The art of producing and managing that beautiful 
and brilliant light*, which is now rendered so exten- 
sively subservient to the dispelling of physical dark- 
| ness, either originated, or was greatly improved, in 
I the vicinity of Birmingham ; but the endeavours to 
diffuse a considerable portion of mental and moral 
light over that remarkable and populous district 
were more early, and certainly not less earnest and 
effective. The means employed are not so well 
known as they deserve to be, and therefore some 

* Gas light. Mr. Murdoch, engineer to Messrs. Boulton 
ind Watt, seems entitled to the merit of having first applied 
;he use of coal gas instead of oil or tallow for producing light. 
[n 1792 he employed it for lighting his house and offices at 
Redruth in Cornwall, and in 1797 he again made a similar 
lse of it in Scotland; but in 1798 he constructed an appa- 
atus which enabled him to light Messrs. B. and Co's. steam 
ingine manufactory at Soho. However, at the celebration 
>f the peace, in April, 1802, he illuminated the exterior of 
he Soho works solely with gas lights, which were displayed 
n a great variety of ornamental devices. This illumination 
ras one of extraordinary splendour and the first great public 
:xhibition of the kind. The Writer witnessed this grand 
uminous spectacle which astonished by its brilliance and 
lovelty. 

A 2 



account of them may not be uninteresting at a time 
when Mechanics' Institutions and similar establish- 
ments are the objects of so much laudable attention. 

It is well known, that Mr. Burke characterized Bir- 
mingham as " the toyshop of Europe," and the expres- 
sion might pass as a temporary rhetorical flourish ; but if 
it is considered, that this region had long been, as it 
were, consecrated by the residence of superior minds, 
and was the scene of the labours of a Baskerville, a 
Boulton, a Watt, a Priestley, a Withering, a Keir, 
and many others eminent for cultivated intellect and 
mechanical genius, will not bis designation be deemed 
strikingly defective, if not frivolous and insignificant ? 
Had he delineated it as " a favourite seat of the arts, 
a place celebrated for the perfection of its works of 
skill,— for its ingenious inventions without number,— 
for its prodigies of finished and sublime mechanism, — 
for productions which gave a character to the country 
and the age;— known and admired in every quarter 
of the globe, — famed for diffusing throughout the 
world the elegancies and conveniencies of civilized 
life— the happy devices of modern ingenuity and 
refinement *," how much more appropriate would 
have been his language ! This was the character 
drawn of the place by one whose acquaintance with 
it enabled him to form a more accurate estimate of its 
worth: and is it an exaggerated picture? or will it 
be recognized as sketched with the pencil of truth? 
But whence were derived its claims to so much 
commendation for knowledge and ingenuity ? 

Amongst the various excellent plans of education 



Mr. David Jones. 



pursued in this country, not one, perhaps, has inore 
deservedly received attention or excited admiration 
than the institutions for supplying the intellectual 
wants of its labouring population ; and how zealous 
and meritorious have been the endeavours to enlighten 
/this large and useful portion of the community ! Some 
jbenevolent and patriotic individuals very early en- 
jgaged in this noble career of improvement, and con- 
tributed to spread its cheering influence at Birming- 
hham* A few rays of light will perhaps be thrown 
upon this interesting topic by the following relation 
} of facts, which evince how successful and long con- 
tinued have been the exertions in that town to accom- 
plish this important object. 

I Though Sunday Schools originated with the bene- 
jjficent Mr. Raikes, of Gloucester, their utility was 
.so evident as to induce other towns soon to introduce 
„them k Birmingham was one of the places where this 
J benevolent plan of ameliorating the mental condition 
{ of the working classes was not only first adopted *, 
. but every religious denomination cordially and zea- 
; lously united to support and promote it. For some 
, time the scheme was amicably pursued ; but, unfor- 
j tunately for the happiness and credit of the town, 
, a different feeling actuated a few individuals, whose 
views were limited to the attainment of their own 

* Several very large buildings have been erected and ap- 
propriated to the purposes of Sunday Schools, yet notwith- 
standing the extent to which the plan has been since car- 
ried, Mr. James Luckcock states as a fact " that one of the 
leading resolutions of the parent committee was, that the 
number of children be limited to twenty" Annual Address 
to the Teachers, January 4, 1829. 



selfish purposes. Hence their unremitting intrigues 
to generate and keep alive a spirit of party, and also 
to obtain the power of directing the public institutions 
of the town, that they might mould them in accordance 
with their own secular and sordid interests. The 
men, whose consequence depended upon the dark 
reign of ignorance, and the influence of prejudices 
and bigotry upon the multitude, were alarmed at the 
progress of knowledge, and therefore employed every 
artifice to retard its advance, and throw obstacles in 
the way of those who were the ardent and active 
friends of improvement. But, happily, the means 
which were employed to check and prevent the 
spread of information ultimately conduced to acce- 
lerate its increase. 

The measures and the spirit alluded to, occasioned 
the Dissenters to establish Sundav Schools of their 
own in 1787, and their management has always 
been an object of peculiar interest and attention. 
Perhaps no other place has carried this plan of edu- 
cation to greater perfection, or more widely expe- 
rienced and diffused its beneficial influence. The 
original object of these institutions was confined to 
teaching the art of reading only, which the pupils 
having acquired were dismissed. But, in 1789, 
some young men, whose ardour in the pursuit of 
knowledge was as conspicuous as their zeal for the 
improvement of others was disinterested, conceived 
the idea of extending the plan of Mr. Raikes by 
taking under their care the youths when they were 
dismissed from the Sunday Schools ; and this enlarge- 
ment of the scheme has been productive of incalcu- 
lable advantages. They designated themselves The 



I Sunday Society ; their purpose was to teach writings 

i arithmetic, and also to communicate such other infor- 
mation as would not only contribute to form the 
moral character of the boys, but be useful to them in 

! their several future occupations, as well as to keep 
them in the paths of rectitude. Hence geography, 
book-keeping, and drawing, were afterwards added, 
as well as moral instruction. Moreover, some of 
those who engaged in this attempt had cultivated a 
taste for natural philosophy, and belonged to a small 
society # , established a few years before, for their 
mutual improvement in useful knowledge ; and as 
some of them were skilful and ingenious as workmen, 
they constructed a variety of apparatus for experi- 

j ments to illustrate the principles of mechanics, hydro- 
statics, electricity, pneumatics, and astronomy. This 
philosophical society also possessed a well- selected, 
though not a large library, consisting principally of 

* Several of the members of this small society became con- 
spicuous characters in succeeding years : one of them is now 
a distinguished Royal Academician, and also one of the Coun- 
cil of the Royal Academy ; and at a time when they were 
attending to Hartley's Theory of the Mind, their president 
was the present highly respectable, acute, and intelligent 
Principal of Hazelwood School. Another member of this 
society, Mr. Thomas Clark, early engaged in instructing the 
working classes ; he was accustomed to give familiar lectures, 
at his own house, on Mechanics and other branches of Na- 
tural Philosophy, to a number of artizans, and among others, 
several of the workmen belonging to the Eagle foundry. 
This was in 1794 and 1/95, and one of his humourous ac- 
quaintance designated this assemblage as " the cast-iron phi* 
losophers" Mr. Josiah Pemberton, who so early displayed 
great ingenuity in gas light operations, was also one of the 
number. 



8 

works ou scientific subjects ; and they permitted the 
reading of their books by others unconnected with 
them, upon the payment of a small subscription. 
Some of its members likewise occasionally gave lec- 
tures on the above subjects to the young men and 
others connected with the manufactories in the town ; 
thus gratuitously communicating scientific informa- 
tion, and probably creating a taste for it in a larger 
circle. Hence the disposition to such pursuits was 
widely spreading in the town ; for the various indi- 
viduals belonged to different manufactories, and they 
were equally ardent and active in promoting the suc- 
cess of such schemes. 

As those, who originated the plan of giving farther 
instruction to the boys when they had been taught to 
read in the Sunday Schools, had witnessed the ma- 
chinations which had heretofore been employed to 
check the current of intellectual improvement in the 
town, they deemed it discreet to provide the means 
of accomplishing their purposes from their own re- 
sources, and thus to prevent any improper inter- 
ference to thwart their views of being useful. They 
first engaged a large and commodious public room 
for the business of their school ; but, as its occupa- 
tion was chiefly on a Sunday, in order to increase 
their pecuniary means, the idea was suggested of ap- 
plying the use of their room to the purposes of a 
debating society, in which some useful and interest- 
ing question should be discussed once a week, and 
strangers admitted at sixpence each*. This point 

* About the same period some other debating societies 
were established, in which moral and interesting questions 
were often admirably discussed. Among the most respee- 



9 

ovas also attained: some of the first questions were 
on subjects connected with education ; and as the 
discussions attracted great attention, they not only 
increased the spirit of liberal inquiry in the town, but 

] also produced an earnest desire of information in 
many of those who attended them. Indeed, from 

■i the ability, zeal, and energy exercised in these un- 
dertakings, the success of them far exceeded the 

, most sanguine anticipations of their projectors. 

Thus happily proceeded the beneficent efforts to 

I promote the improvement of the artizans of Bir- 

, mingham, till the unfortunate riots of 1791 occa- 
sioned a temporary interruption to such useful and 
meritorious labours for the benefit of society. But 
the melancholy scenes which were then exhibited 

, proved the importance of increasing the exertions to 
instruct and enlighten the labouring classes, so as to 

I prevent their being the dupes and tools of the artful 
and grovelling advocates of ignorance, who, under 
the pretext of loyalty, roused the bad passions of an 
uninformed multitude, which led them to violate 
every social, civil, and religious obligation*. 

table was one that met at a large Assembly Room, in Temple 
Row, and Mr. John Collard, who published a Treatise and 
Praxis on Logic, was a distinguished member. 

* All the writer's relations as well as himself belonged to 
he Church of England, and as they were in the regular and 
constant practice of attending its services prior to the riots of 
1791, he too often had the mortification to be obliged to listen 
to violent and defamatory declamations against Dr. Priestley 
and Dissenters, instead of those lessons of benevolence 
and candour, which the amiable Author of the Christian 
Religion so strenuously inculcated upon his followers. On 
the Sunday mornings frequently has he heard discourses that 

A 5 



10 

The dishonour attaching to the origin of these pro- 
ceedings ought not perhaps to be attributed to the 
regular and constant inhabitants of Birmingham, but 
rather to those who were its occasional residents, in 
order to enjoy the advantages of its preferments* 
The majority of the respectable laymen belonging to 
the place in general cherished better feelings, and 
disclaimed, and justly so, the opprobious imputation 
However, the light of moral ana religious information 
having dissipated that darkness, which formerly ob- 
scured the minds of the working classes — they now 
entertain more correct views of their duty, and pro- 
bably, therefore, such events will never occur again 
to tarnish the fame of this celebrated town. 

Perhaps no other individual saw more of those un- 
happy transactions than the Writer of these pages 
He was an indignant witness of the destruction of 
Dr. Priestley's library, manuscripts, and apparatus — 
the means of those great discoveries which have in- 
terwoven his name with the existence of science, and 
reflected so much honour on his character. Revert- 
ing to these events with melancholy concern, he 
earnestly wishes that either they had not occurred, or 

were characterised by the spirit of a Bonner and a Gardiner, 
rather than that of a Lowth, a Shipley, or a Watson ? But 
from the effects, which the increase of knowledge and the en- 
couragement given to the arts have an evident tendency to 
produce upon the public mind, may it not be fairly antici- 
pated that, during the reign of George the Fourth, liberal 
sentiments will be so widely diffused as to render bigotry 
powerless, and to annihilate the spirit of persecution ? — Since 
the first publication of the latter remark in 1827, how ex- 
tensively have the views here expressed been realized I 



11 

that the foul blot could be effaced from the records 
of the place of his nativity, and erased from the annals 
I of his country # . 

* Though differing in religious opinions I was in the habit 
of associating with those who regularly attended the instruc- 
tions of Dr. Priestley; and had I formed my notions of him, 
or estimated his character from the representations which I 
often heard from the pulpit in the church, 1 must indeed have 
deemed him " the demon of heresy ;" hut happily I had been 
accustomed to exercise my own faculties in the pursuit of 
truth. Much as I had heard and read about Dr. Priestley I 
did not know his person till the year 1788, when curiosity 
induced me to accompany a friend to hear a lecture which he 
delivered on a Sunday afternoon. Amongst various other de- 
signations, we had been told that he was " a deluded vision- 
ary/' and " a proud and haughty scorner ;" but we disco- 
vered such a delineation to be unjust, having no resem- 
blance to reality. When we entered the place, we found 
a man of about the middle stature, slenderly made, re- 
markably placid, modest, and courteous, pouring out, 
with the simplicity of a child, the great stores of his most 
capacious mind to a considerable number of young persons of 
both sexes, whom, with the familiarity and kindness of a 
friend, he encouraged to ask him questions, either during 
the lecture or after it, if he advanced any thing which wanted 
explanation, or struck them in a light different from his own. 
The impression made upon us was so strong, that we never 
failed afterwards to attend on such occasions in order to pro- 
fit by his lessons, and we frequently went to hear him preach 
until he was driven from the town in 1/91. His lectures 
were peculiarly instructive, and the general tenour of his 
sermons was practical, urging to the cultivation of univer- 
sal benevolence, the earnest pursuit of knowledge, and the 
most unrestrained free inquiry upon all important subjects. 
He was the most unassuming, candid man I ever knew; and 
never did I hear from his lips, either in lecture or sermon, 
one illiberal sentiment, or one harsh expression concerning 
any persons who differed from him, not even of the indivi- 



12 

The ferment, disgust, and acrimony produced by 
the riots, had for some time a most unfavourable 

duals who were so much in the practice of abusing him and 
traducing his character. Such was the companion of Franklin 
and Watt ; and his splendid discoveries in science have encircled 
his name with glory similar to that irradiating Newton, Boyle, 
Locke, and others of his countrymen. But since death termi- 
nated the career of his useful exertions for the benefit of man- 
kind, the terms, "foolish?" "giddy," "conceit," "garrulity" 
dye, have been applied to this truly eminent philosopher by a 
person not very distinguished either for great knowledge, diffi- 
dence, or taciturnity; and perhaps in a comparison of their re- 
spective talents, attainments, and virtues, the stigmatized Dr. 
Priestley wouldappearpre-eminentlytosurpass his dogmatizing 
critic. In his admirable exposure of " The Causes of the Decline 
of Science in England," Mr. Babbage has pointed out the man 
of many letters, and many offices ; and it will require some- 
thing more efficient than prattle and votes at Somerset House 
to invalidate Mr. Babbage's statements. Dr. Priestley the 
F. R. S. was not a jobbing philosopher, and actually refused a 
pension, though he had rendered such important service to 
the arts, by his chemical discoveries ; but his disinterested 
disposition would not allow him to be a burden to his coun- 
try. In corroboration of Mr. Babbage's detail, may not a 
variety oi facts be adduced from recent parliamentary docu- 
ments, and particularly one which shows that a trio of F.R.S. 
received 800/. each for their signal exertions in a case where 
the prominent statement of their report evinced either a 
palpable lack of knowledge, or intentional misrepresentation 
(the choice of the alternative is left to themselves) relating 
togas and water? Besides, according to the published evi- 
dence, does it not appear that one of the philosophers, in 
order to realize a new project of his own, actually introduced 
the honest Jew to the Birmingham attorney who was lately 
reprimanded by the Speaker of the House of Commons : 
And do not similarly authorized documents likewise demon- 
strate how often certain F. R. S. &c, &c. have been conspicu- 
ously garrulous in their support of schemes for New Gas, 
Water, and Canal Companies, as well as other objects ? 



IS 

effect upon friendly intercourse in the town, and for 
several months the exertions of the Sunday Society 
were suspended, from the great and unmerited oblo- 
quy which, in common with many others, they had 
experienced. But their ardour for the attainment 
of their objects remained undiminished, and in 
1792 they resumed their plans, and pursued them 
with increasing earnestness*. Amongst the various 
improvements introduced was one which consisted 
in selecting the more intelligent pupils of the Sun- 
day Schools and qualifying them for teachers, who 
should gratuitously instruct others in considera- 
tion of the benefits which they themselves had re- 
ceived. This plan of reciprocal instruction proved 
inestimably advantageous, by creating useful and 
laudable emulation among the boys, both with re- 
spect to mental acquirements and moral conduct; 
and the contrivance has contributed to diffuse a 
taste for intellectual and moral pursuits, among the 
artizans of Birmingham, to an extent unparalleled, 
perhaps, by any other town in the kingdom. So cor- 
rect and deserving was the conduct of many of these 



* It was on this occasion that the Writer became one of 
its active members in conjunction with his most excellent 
friends, Thomas Phipson, and James Luckcock, both of whom 
were several years older than himself, and had been con- 
cerned in its proceedings from their commencement. Among 
the persons connected with the Sunday Society, at this pe- 
riod, was Mr. Thomas Baker, who has uniformly distinguished 
himself by his zeal and activity in the acquisition and diffu- 
sion of knowledge. He is well known among the Society of 
Friends, as one of the ablest Lancasterian teachers in the king- 
dom. 



14 

selected assistants, that, (to use the words of one of 
its most zealous promoters), it led to the formation of 
" a new intellectual and moral society ;" and, in the 
year 1796, the managers connected them with them- 
selves to carry on their plans in amicable co-opera- 
tion, under the denomination of " The Brotherly 
Society." The following is one of the rules which 
they adopted on that occasion, and it will not only 
explain the object of the association, but evince its 
near resemblance to that of the present Mechanics' 
Institutions: — " The subjects for improvement shall 
be Reading, Writing, Arithmetic, Drawing, Geo- 
graphy, Natural and Civil History, and Mo- 
rals ; or, in short, whatever may be generally use- 
ful to a manufacturer, or as furnishing principles 
for active benevolence and integrity" — Mr. James 
Luckcock, who was one of the first to engage in 
the project, delivered a series of Moral Lectures 
to this society, which he afterwards published under 
the title of " Moral Culture ;" but as they were 
printed in Birmingham, and not much advertised, 
they were probably not so widely known as they 
otherwise might have been^. 

In 1794 and 1795, Mr. David Jones, who after- 
wards was at the Chancery Bar, delivered some ad- 
mirable courses of lectures on the Philosophy of the 
Human Mind as connected with Education, the 



* Having heard these Lectures delivered, their publication 
was owing to my recommendation, as Mr. Luckcock acknow- 
ledges in his preface, though he does not mention my name. 
He has since delivered several of the Annual Addresses to 
the Teachers, some of which have been printed. 



15 

Theory of Morals, and also on General History. The 
admission to all these lectures was gratuitous, and 
as the style of the lecturer was remarkably simple, 
his manner earnest and unassuming, and his illus- 
trations peculiarly felicitous, the interest which they 
excited occasioned them to be very numerously at- 
tended by persons of both sexes of different religious 
denominations. 

But the disposition to promote the spread of 
knowledge at this period in Birmingham was shown 
by another circumstance, which is so important that 
it ought to be recorded. This was the establishment 
of a Library for the peculiar use of the Working 
Classes, that those who could not afford to purchase 
books, and yet possessed a taste for useful reading, 
might enjoy the gratification. This excellent scheme 
originated with Messrs. Thomas and Samuel Carpenter, 
(the brothers of Dr. Lant Carpenter,) who had esta- 
blished a Sunday School which they conducted by 
their own exertions, and supported at their own ex- 
pense. Mr. Thomas Carpenter also occasionally gave 
lectures gratuitously on some useful subject, to the 
younger artizans, at his own large room. But the 
subsequent account, which the managers of the Ar- 
tizaus Library published in 1825, conveys so much 
satisfactory information on this subject, that its notice 
will be merely an act of justice to its founders and 
present supporters, 

" To the Subscribers and Friends to the Artizans* Library, 

" It having been suggested at the last Annual Meeting of 
Subscribers to this Institution, that it might be materially 
benefited, and the number of its Subscribers considerably 



16 

increased, if its existence were made known to those who are 
unacquainted therewith, and the great advantages it possesses 
pointed out to those who know of such a Society only by 
name; a Sub-Committee was appointed to draw up a brief 
report of its origin and progress, to be published for distri- 
bution among the Subscribers and Friends to the Institution. 
"The Artizans' Library owes its origin to the establish- 
ment of a Sunday School by Messrs. Thomas and Samuel Car- 
penter, in the year 1/9/, who, when these institutions, which 
have conferred lasting benefit on the working classes, by en- 
lightening their minds and effecting the happiest change in 
their morals and pursuits, were yet in their infancy, meri- 
toriously conducted, and, at their own expense, supported 
one. To excite emulation among their scholars, they offered 
them, by way of reward, the privilege of using a small col- 
lection of books, then wholly donations from the Messrs. Car- 
penter and their relations. The original number of Sub- 
scribers was about twenty, at one penny per week. Soon 
the collection was increased by honorary subscriptions from 
wealthy and benevolent individuals, among whom the name 
of Mr. Thomas Ryland stands conspicuous. In about two 
years after, the founders conceived the generous idea of 
making the Library public ; accordingly Subscribers gene- 
rally were admitted, and a code of laws drawn up for the re- 
gulation of the institution, which assumed the name of the 
* Bristol-Street Society/ from the circumstance of its being 
then situated in that street. In the year 1/99, the founders 
changing their pursuits, the Library was removed into Para- 
dise Street, to the residence of Mr. Thomas Carpenter, and 
here it took the name of ' Artizans' Library.' Shortly after, 
circumstances compelled its removal to other situations ; its 
consequence now was increased, and the entrance raised from 
one shilling to two shillings and sixpence, and the subscrip- 
tion to one shilling and sixpence per quarter, or five shillings 
and ninepence per annum, at which it has ever since re- 
mained; but the rate of entrance has subsequently expe- 
rienced another advance to three shillings. After several 
removals; the Library was at length, in 1811, settled in its 
present situation, Edmund Street, and the room, having been 



17 

much enlarged and improved, is in every respect calculated 
for the accommodation of the Subscribers. It is open for the 
transaction of business on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday 
evenings, from half- past seven till nine o'clock ; its laws are 
simple, and such as appear well calculated for the govern- 
ment of the institution, and the security of its funds. The 
present number of Subscribers is one hundred and eighty-two, 
and the Library consists of one thousand five hundred vo- 
lumes, arranged under the heads of History, Biography, Voy- 
ages, Travels, Arts and Sciences, Poetry, the Drama, Novels, 
and Miscellanies. In Arts and Sciences, the selections are 
judicious and ample, the Edinburgh and English Encyclope- 
dias are among the number; in historical and biographical 
works, in Voyages and Travels, it is rich : the periodical pub- 
lications are some of the best extant. Novel-reading the 
Library does not particularly encourage ; the laws limit the 
purchase of this species of reading to at most one-tenth of 
the annual income ; indeed, in the earlier ages of the insti- 
tution it was totally excluded, but the limited introduction of 
it was afterwards deemed expedient : the works of this des- 
cription are of the best class, and by the most esteemed 
authors. The yearly receipts are generally about seventy 
pounds, the whole of which is expended in books, except the 
charges for rent, Librarian's salary, and incidentals, which 
amount to about one-third of its annual income. The value of 
the Library may be estimated at about four hundred and 
fifty pounds. 

" When it is considered that at the very low rate of three 
shillings, a Subscriber actually becomes a joint proprietor in 
a Society of this value, and that the selections in every class 
of reading are the most choice of ancient and modern lite- 
rature, it must be admitted that the advantages thus offered 
are great indeed; the number of Subscribers must neces- 
sarily be fluctuating; but it is presumed that when the So- 
ciety shall become better known, many, who are at present 
ignorant of its constitution and merits, will hasten to parti- 
cipate in the benefits to be derived, and obtain, at a very 
cheap rate, high mental gratification. The welfare of the 
Society demands from its friends their most strenuous exer- 



18 

tions, as there is most ample room for the accommodation of 
double the present number of Subscribers, without any addi- 
tional increase in its expenditure. At present its expenses 
are heavy compared with its receipts, which limits the intro- 
duction of new publications, and excludes many which it 
would be desirable to possess. The Subscribers and Friends 
are therefore earnestly, yet respectfully, solicited to give pub- 
licity to an institution so well calculated to confer lasting 
benefits upon themselves and society." 

"August 1, 1825." 

Birmingham has long enjoyed the advantage of 
Public Libraries, one of which was established in 
1779. It is very extensive, and the laws by which it is 
regulated were greatly improved by Dr. Priestley, 
who was for several years one of its managing com- 
mittee, from which he was afterwards excluded by 
the intrigues of some narrow-minded men, who 
never contributed one iota to the mental improve- 
ment of the town, or the literature and science of 
their country, and who could tolerate no difference 
of sentiment if it affected their own exclusive in- 
terests and importance^'. The primary object of the 
institution was to collect "the most valuable publica- 
tions in the English language," so as to form " a 
treasure of knowledge both for the present and suc- 
ceeding ages." It was not founded to " answer the 
purposes of any party, civil or religious, but to pro- 

* Dr. Priestley's Appeal to the Public on the Birmingham 
Riots, of 1791, and Dr. Parr's Sequel to a Printed Paper, &c. 
contain many curious facts illustrative of the conduct of 
the prominent actors in the disgraceful transactions of that 
period, and they exhibited the same spirit long after the 
riots. 



19 

mote a spirit of liberality and friendship among all 
classes without distinction." 

However, in the year 1785, a series of measures 
commenced to defeat these excellent objects ; and they 
evinced the utter want of either delicate or dignified 
feeling in the persons who could have recourse to 
them. One of the first resorted to was the blotting 
out the word Reverend, which was prefixed to the 
names of Dr. Priestley and the amiable and intel- 
ligent Radclyffe Scholefield, in the records of the trans- 
actions of the library. In the subsequent year 1786, 
this pitiful act (which was attributed to the Rev. 
C Curtis) was followed by the practice of handing 
about lists for the purpose of packing a committee, 
of which a majority should consist of persons who 
entertained congenial views and sentiments. The 
efforts proved successful, but it is a remarkable fact 
that this carefully selected committee thwarted the 
intentions of those who had been so active in ob- 
taining their appointment, for they actually voted 
into the Library the work which had given the 
greatest offence to the clergy. This was the His- 
tory of the Corruptions of Christianity, written by 
Dr. Priestley, who had uniformly opposed its intro- 
duction ; and when it was introduced contrary to his 
wishes, he proposed to have Dr. Horsley's answers 
to it, having constantly voted for every publication 
written against himself. The admission of the 
work, however, excited a high degree of angry 
feeling in a few individuals, and led to a protest 
signed by four clergymen, the Rev. C. Curtis, 
C. L. Shipley, J. James, and Mark Noble. The 
three former also withdrew their names from the in- 



20 

stitution, but soon afterwards had them re-entered 
in order to pursue the illiberal career which they had 
so meanly and unworthily begun. 

In 1787, the Rev. J. Cooke (the present Head 
Master of the Free Grammar School) gave notice of 
his intention, and afterwards proposed a law to ex- 
clude all books of controversial divinity ; but his 
proposition did not succeed, there being 53 votes 
only for it, and 91 against it, thus demonstrating that 
a majority of those, who at that period supported the 
institution, were favourable to free discussion, which 
has so often elicited and elucidated important truths. 
But had the zealous advocates of the measure for 
confining the enquiries of the human mind within 
their own narrow limits, lived in the days of Wicliffe 
and other illustrious reformers, who have so nobly 
exerted themselves to emancipate mankind from 
mental thraldom and darkness, probably the same 
feelings would have governed their conduct. Indeed 
on the occasion now alluded to, a pamphlet appeared 
relative to the library, clearly displaying the dispo- 
sitions, sentiments, and conduct which, unfortunately 
for Birmingham, characterized the " preachers of 
peace" in those days. This was " a Letter to 
Dr. Priestley by Somebody, M. S." and its real 
author was afterwards avowed to be the Rev. J. Glut- 
ton, M. A. It is now to be found among others in 
the library, and should curiosity induce any person 
to glance over its pages, he will perceive the baleful 
spirit that actuated some of the professed teachers 
of that divine religion which inculcates upon all men 
to cherish benevolent feelings, to dwell together in 
unity, and to regard each other as brethren ! This 



21 

publication affords a fair specimen of the language 
then employed, both in preaching and conversation, 
to operate upon the passions, and direct the actions 
of those who listened to it ; and perhaps the days of 
the far-famed Sacheverell did not furnish any effu- 
sion to surpass it in bigotted, low-minded scurrility, or 
malevolent defamation. It was a compound of sanc- 
timony and animosity, conveyed in a style the most 
arrogant, scornful, and self-complacent; but the tem- 
per of the town at the present time would discoun- 
tenance such virulence from whomsoever it might 
proceed. Happily for the peace and welfare of the 
place, such intolerant persons have no longer any 
influence over the inhabitants of Birmingham. 

The disgust produced by this acrimonious spirit and 
mean conduct induced some respectable and liberal- 
minded individuals to attempt in 1796 the establish- 
ment of another institution *, which has been well 
supported, and now contains a most valuable collec- 

* The Writer was one of those who were concerned in 
establishing" this institution, and he was also a member of its 
managing committee for the first two years. Previous to the 
Riots in 1791, the New Meeting 1 vestry also contained a small 
but very useful library, consisting of wprks relating to the 
evidences of natural and revealed religion, ecclesiastical his- 
tory &c. &c. Among them were some of the works of Bishop 
Law, Lowth, and Watson, Locke, Dr. Hartley, Mosheim, 
Harmer, Blackburne, and other eminent men. The perusal of 
the books was gratuitously allowed to all persons who were 
known or recommended to the librarian, without any regard 
to distinction of sect or party. The greater part of these 
valuable volumes was employed to make the bonfire, for 
destroying the New Meeting on the 14th July, 1791, a transac- 
tion seen by the eyes which direct the pen that records it. 



22 

tion of books. This was called the New Birmingham 
Library, and it commenced and continued for seve- 
ral years in the same large room which the Sunday 
Society occupied, when they resumed their exertions 
in 1792. The commodious and handsome building, 
since erected for its reception, affords the strongest 
evidence of its success and utility. But from the ad- 
vantages afforded, the terms of admission being mo- 
derate, and the general prevalence of a taste for read- 
ing in the town, the number of subscribers to support 
both libraries is very considerable ; and their ma- 
nagement is indicative of the liberal feeling of the pre- 
sent time. 

Nearly thirty years ago, Mr. George Barker (au 
eminent solicitor), in conjunction with a few of his 
scientific friends, commenced an association for the 
purposes of science. This is called The Philoso* 
phical Institution*, and it now possesses very ex- 
tensive apparatus for experiments, as well as a va- 
luable library, consisting chiefly of publications, in 
different languages, relating to the objects of their 
pursuits. For a considerable part of the year, a 

* For several years the secretary to this society was 
Mr. Thomas Halliday, an artist who has executed medals 
of Henry Brougham, Esq., Dr. Priestley, and other emi- 
nent men. He is the author of an excellent little work 
entitled " Numerical Games/' and was an associate with, and 
at one time a coadjutor of, those who were most active in 
diffusing knowledge among the artizans of Birmingham. He 
was also one of a small society called " The Club/' where 
some of the plans formerly alluded to were discussed ; and 
Mr. Luckcock was the senior member. This Club originated 
with the Writer, and its first meeting was held at his 
house. 



23 

lecture on some scientific or useful subject is deli- 
vered once a week, by one of its members ; but 
others are admitted to the lectures upon the payment 
of a moderate subscription ; and as their lecture- 
room is both large and commodious, the attendance 
is usually great. This society has also occasionally 
engaged other persons to deliver courses of lectures 
on various subjects, and among these may be named 
Dr. Thomson and Mr. Dalton on Chemistry, Sir James 
Smith on Botany, Mr. Thomas Campbell on Poetry, 
Dr. Crotch on Music, and Mr. Elmes on Architec- 
ture, &c. But previously to the establishment of this 
institution, the popular lecturers on subjects of science 
who visited the town were generally well attended. 
All these institutions afford indications of enlightened 
views and increasing liberality of sentiment ; the 
cordiality and unanimity displayed in their support, 
by all the different sects in the town, have evinced a 
community of courteous and friendly feeling ; and to 
those who witnessed the temper and conduct of for- 
mer days, how agreeably striking is the contrast, and 
how grateful the reflection! May party violence 
never again disturb this peaceful abode of science 
and the arts ! 

The merit and praise, however, of advancing the 
progress of improvement among the artizans of Bir- 
mingham principally belong to men whose days were 
devoted to business, and whose active employments 
left them but little leisure for other purposes ; but a 
part even of that leisure was cheerfully and meritori- 
ously appropriated to giving useful instruction to 
those who most wanted it. Such were the men who 



24 

employed every laudable means by which knowledge 
could be diffused among the industrious and enter- 
prising inhabitants of Birmingham, and probably their 
exertions have contributed much towards the forma- 
tion of their present general character. Though for- 
mer events may indeed have cast a gloomy shade upon 
its reputation, where is now the town in the British em- 
pire whose population is more conspicuous for sen- 
timents and conduct accordant with the enlightened 
and liberal spirit of the age? And where are the 
working classes more generally remarkable for their 
intelligence, information, and orderly conduct? 

Birmingham may probably be adduced as one of 
the most striking instances and strongest proofs 
of the civilizing and moral effects of education, 
that characterize modern times. Previous to the 
wide diffusion of knowledge among the working 
classes in the town and its vicinity, whenever trade 
was so bad as to occasion a* deficiency of employment, 
or provisions were at a high price, bakers, millers, 
butchers, farmers, and others, became the objects of 
their hatred and vengeance, and often suffered con- 
siderably from the depredations committed upon them, 
by the injury or destruction of their property. Hap- 
pily however the influence of education has obviated 
these very serious evils; and such violations of jus- 
tice and law, as indiscriminate plunder and riotous 
assemblages, do not now occur to disgrace the popu- 
lation. Though endued with feeling, they have 
learned to reason, and consequently their actions are 
consonant with their improved condition. 

That the origin of the several plans for giving use* 



25 

ful information to the artizans of Birmingham, be- 
longs to Mr. James Luckcock, and a few of his as- 
sociates in the town is evident from the preceding 
detail. Their labours in this great and good work 
have been unremitting for a very long period, and 
thousands can testify to their successful effects. They 
commenced many years before Dr. Birkbeck deli- 
vered his lectures to the mechanics at Glasgow, and 
of which the public did not hear till nearly twenty 
years after they were delivered. But as so much has 
recently been said and written about the origin and 
utility of Mechanics' Institutions, ought the great, use- 
ful, and disinterested services of James Luckcock 
and Thomas Carpenter, and their associates, to pass 
unregarded, when their exertions have been so re- 
markably meritorious ? 

There is not another individual existing to whom 
the friends of general education are under greater 
obligations than to Henry Brougham, Esq,, who, 
amidst numerous avocations, and the distractions of a 
laborious profession, has steadily devoted his atten- 
tion to the subject. His able and eloquent appeals, 
his energetic and indefatigable exertions, have pro- 
duced effects, and given rise to establishments, whose 
advantages will be more duly appreciated by poste- 
rity* Future ages will revert to, and ruminate upon, 
his pre-eminent services to his country with grateful 
admiration, and will rank him among the greatest of 
those who benevolently and disinterestedly endea- 
voured to elevate the character of man. Had he 
known of the beneficent labours of James Luckcock 
and Thomas Carpenter, and their coadjutors, at the 
time he wrote his "Practical Observations upon 

B 



26 

the Education of the People, addressed to the 
Working Classes and their Employers," his candid, 
and manly, and generous spirit would have deemed 
them of too much importance to pass unnoticed*. 

From a note in that useful and interesting ad- 
dress, it appears that Mr. Brougham chiefly derived 
his information respecting Dr. Birkbeck's scheme 
from a letter of Mr. D. Bannatyne, which appeared 
in the Mechanics' Register f; and he states that as 
early as 1817, the latter gentleman had recommended 
an extension of Dr. Birkbeck's plan, in Mr. Napier's 
Encyclopedia. The Moral Lectures of Mr. Luckcock 
were printed in 1816 ; the preface is dated Decem- 
ber, in that year ; and they were published at the 
beginning of 1817. At the end of his work he gave 
a concise account of the origin, progress, and success 
of the plans which had been pursued for the education 
of the working classes in Birmingham, for thirty pre- 
ceding years. However, obvious and well known 
as they were in that town, all these circumstances 
might be utterly unknown to Dr. Birkbeck. 

The following facts, though known but to a few, 
may perhaps be considered as rather striking, when 
connected with others of a more recent date. About 
the year 1804, Dr. Birkbeck delivered at Birming- 
ham a course of lectures on Chemistry, by subscrip- 

* In 1828 Mr. Luckcock presented a copy of his " Moral 
Culture," to Mr. Brougham, who in a letter acknowledging it 
stated that he "had certainly no idea before of the great 
efforts that had been made, and most successfully, in Bir- 
mingham, 5 ' Annual Address to the Teachers, 1829. 

t For January, 1825 $ communicated by Dr. Birkbeck him- 
self. 



27 

tion ; and a very respectable individual*, who was 
peculiarly ardent, active, and persevering in scientific 
pursuits, and also very earnest in his endeavours to 
diffuse a taste for them among the artizans within the 
circle of his acquaintance, voluntarily and gratui- 
tously assisted Dr. Birkbeck for some weeks in pre- 
paring and making the experiments exhibited in those 
lectures. This person was one of those who had 
acquired his taste for this kind of knowledge by ca- 
sually attending some of the lectures which have been 
before alluded to; and he was, moreover, the co-ad- 
jutor of Mr. Luckcock in the management of the 
largest manufactory of its kind in the town of Bir- 
mingham. Besides, this very individual was an evi- 
dence of the attainments of a person who had de- 
voted a part of his leisure only to scientific subjects ; 
he could hardly be excelled in the elegance and skill 
displayed in the construction of his own apparatus, 
and as an experimenter he was at that time far su- 
perior to Dr. Birkbeck. From the zeal which the 
latter has exhibited in London in promoting the es- 
tablishment of Mechanics' Institutes, is it to be 
presumed that he could be in almost daily intercourse 
with such a character as the above, in a town where 
its numerous manufactures abound in chemical ope- 
rations, and not make any inquiries respecting the 



* Mr. William Lea, now one of the Wardens of the Assay 
Office at Birmingham, and brother-in-law to the Principal 
of Hazelwood School. What is stated respecting Dr. Birk- 
beck's lectures at Birmingham is from personal knowledge, 
for the writer was on that occasion one of his auditors, and 
also intimately acquainted with Mr. Lea. 



28 

means employed for instructing the workitig classes 
of Birmingham? If he did not inquire, would it not 
indicate a want of curiosity in a person professedly so 
zealous for the instruction and improvement of mecha- 
nics? And if he did inquire, did he obtain that sa- 
tisfactory information which would be entitled to 
notice? Not a syllable, however, has ever publicly 
transpired upon this subject, and therefore it must be 
inferred that nothing was known ! — Let not these re- 
marks be deemed invidious or improper, for they are 
made not with any view to depreciate the valuable 
and laudable labours of Dr. Birkbeck ; but do not jus- 
tice and candour imperiously dictate the assertion of 
the prior and superior claims of James Luckcock, 
Thomas Carpenter, and others in the town of Bir- 
mingham, to the establishment of institutions for 
the education of the working classes ? 

Numerous as may be the vicissitudes effected by time 
and circumstances, it is a pleasing reflection, that, ex- 
cepting one person*, all those who so zealously, ac- 
tively, and disinterestedly engaged in the noble work 



* Mr. Thomas Phipson. The amiableness of his disposition, 
the urbanity of his manners, and his extensive information, 
conciliated the respect of all parties. Though mild, he was 
intrepid, and fearlessly asserted what he believed to be 
truth, and always resolutely pursued that course of action 
which was dictated by an inflexible regard to rectitude and 
honour. He and his friend Thomas Attwood, Esq., served 
the two principal offices of the town of Birmingham, at 
the period when the celebrated orders in Council, and the 
throwing open a free trade to India, were agitated ; and the 
liberality of sentiment and conduct displayed by both, afforded 
an admirably impressive example to their fellow-townsmen. 



29 

of enlightening the working classes of Birmingham, 
still live to enjoy the ineffable gratification of witness- 

*! ing the effects of their own benevolent exertions to 
benefit society. Unostentatious as were the labours 
of this little band of patriots, they have been strik- 

[ ingly effective, and perhaps eminently entitle them to 
the respectful and grateful attention of their country. 
However one reward is certain ; though " ambition 
mock their useful toil," they have the self-satisfaction 
of reflecting that their efforts have tended effectually 
to disperse the dark clouds which formerly enveloped 
the human mind ; and if the light imparted may not 

! have been very effulgent, yet its radiance has suf- 
ficed to illuminate a great multitude of an important 
portion of the community, by directing their footsteps 
to the paths which led to knowledge and virtue. 

Having detailed the means of intellectual cultiva- 
tion which have heretofore been so successfully pur- 
sued at Birmingham, it may not be altogether 
improper or unuseful to venture a few remarks upon 
the attempt of the present managers of the Free 
Grammar School, to obtain an act of parliament which 
shall empower them to sell or mortgage the estates be- 
longing to it, — to remove the principal part of the 
establishment from the town into its vicinity; — 
to choose for their colleagues any persons residing 
within five miles of the place ; — and to confine its 
benefits to one sect. When such are the avowed 
purposes of the " discreet and trusty" personages, 
can any doubt be entertained as to their ultimate 
object 1 Is not the measure intended to be a prelude 
to the totally depriving of the inhabitants of all those 
advantages, which it was the object of the royal 

B 3 



30 

founder of the institution to confer upon the town ? 
May not such a suspicion be justly entertained from 
the conduct hitherto displayed, in the studious care 
that those who were entitled to its benefits should 
neither be informed of the real purpose of the esta- 
blishment, nor the extent of the very large funds with 
which it is endowed ? However His Majesty's Com- 
missioners have given this useful and important in- 
formation, and have also shown that the sons of every 
inhabitant of Birmingham, whatever may be his 
religious sect, is entitled to participate in the advan- 
tages which it is capable of affording. But how 
small is the number of individuals who have been 
permitted to derive any benefit from an endowment 
expressly intended for the instruction of all those 
who resided within the limits of the parish and the 
manor ? Does it not therefore behove the inhabitants 
to resist, by every legal means, this effort to wrest 
from them a right and a privilege, respecting which 
they have been kept so much in the dark by those 
who have had the direction of a most valuable foun- 
dation, benevolently and richly endowed for the dif- 
fusion of knowledge, but heretofore made the nursery 
of bigotry, the instrument of keeping alive a party 
spirit in order to perpetuate the reign of the grovel- 
ing advocates of prejudice and ignorance? 

Large as has been the income of this munificently 
endowed school, how trivial the good heretofore 
effected by it ? Even the very buildings have been 
suffered to dilapidate ; but may not this have been 
permitted, that those excellent managers of the funds, 
who have applied for authority to remove the prin- 
cipal building for its purposes out of the town, to 



81 

some place in the vicinity, should have a pretext for 
their object ? And why apply for power to choose 
" trusty and discreet" persons for their colleagues 
residing jive miles from the place ? Do not these 
circumstances betray the designs of the authors of 
this notable scheme ? Besides, cannot the numerous 
and intelligent population of Birmingham, furnish 
" twenty discreet and trusty persons" competent 
to manage the concerns of its Free Grammar School 
without seeking assistance in the neighbouring vil- 
lages ? Is not the attempt at this a gross reflection 
upon the intellect and moral character of the inhabi- 
tants ? May it not also be an effort to legalize the 
appointment and acts of some of its recent or pre- 
sent managers, who may not reside in the parish, or 
manor, and therefore had no legal right to be en- 
gaged in the direction of its funds ? Have not 
His Majesty's Commissioners reported, that the 
trustees have both neglected and violated the trust 
confided to them, and also reprehended them for so 
doing? Ought then the power to raise 40,000/. by 
the sale or mortgage of estates belonging to the en- 
dowment to be confided to men, who have not only 
misconducted its affairs, but have actually attempted 
to obtain this unjustifiable authority without even the 
knowledge or consent of those who are most in- 
terested { Both justice and policy imperiously forbid 
that any temporizing measures should be tolerated in 
this case. The exclusive appropriation of its funds 
have continued too long in the same hands. The 
trustees have never rendered to the inhabitants of 
the town an account of their stewardship, but His 
Majesty's Commissioners have done so, and it 



32 

cogently proves, that such persons ought to " be no 
longer stewards." 

The preceding pages develop several of the moral 
causes which have powerfully and successfully operated 
to produce eminently beneficial consequences at Bir- 
mingham. In the course of a few years the revenue of 
its Free Grammar School will be so ample as to be 
adequate to the most important objects ; and, with 
proper management, might be rendered subservient 
to the intellectual improvement of thousands and 
tens of thousands, instead of the few who under its 
former and present directors may have enjoyed its 
limited advantages. Although one of the reasons 
assigned by those who have applied for the new act is, 
that " the arts and sciences " may be taught in the 
school, yet they do not specify what " arts and sci- 
ences " are meant. If the art of keeping the mass of 
the people in ignorance, and the science of intrigue 
to possess and retain the power of appropriating to 
particular objects and persons, those funds, which 
were obviously and expressly intended for the 
general benefit, be the subjects alluded to, the 
public have already had too many lessons of the 
kind. But the conduct which has characterized the 
men of "arts and sciences," will enable the inha- 
bitants of Birmingham properly to appreciate the 
professions and purposes of such zealous and sincere 
friends to the spread of knowledge among them ; and 
doubtless a due regard to their own rights and in- 
terests will stimulate them to exert themselves to 
the utmost in order to prevent their worships, &c. 
from obtaining the power to carry their contem- 
plated scheme into effect. But if perchance the latter 



33 

should succeed, is it in the least degree improbable, 
that among the " discreet and trusty persons" selected, 
may be enumerated (if not already so) some of those, 
who, a few years since, enabled the employer of 
Oliver the spy*, to fill a green bag by representing 
the loyal people of Birmingham, particularly the 
working classes, as engaged in conspiring against 
the government of their country, and busily employed 
in making weapons to effect their illegal purpose? 
when on the contrary, they were never more peace- 
ably disposed, and their necessities actually obliged 
them to work upon the public roads for one shilling a 



* Though never connected with any political association 
whatever, accident led me to become acquainted with the 
machinations of this notorious character at Birmingham from 
a person I employed as a clerk, who happened to know some 
of the individuals whom Oliver had endeavoured to inveigle- 
As they had mentioned to him the diabolical propositions of 
the spy, he cautioned them to avoid intercourse with any 
man who could cherish such nefarious designs ; and when he 
came to the counting-house, he informed me of the circum- 
stance. A friend and myself immediately went in search of 
the persons with whom he had been, in order to ascertain 
from them all the particulars of Oliver's conduct and con- 
versation. As soon as we had obtained the necessary infor- 
mation, each wrote an account which was sent off the same 
evening to a friend in London, who waited upon Mr, Brougham 
and Mr, Grey Bennet. Both accounts were read in the House 
of Commons, where the exposure of the operations of the spy 
occasioned their termination. However, some time after, his 
noble employer provided his agent with an office at the Cape 
of Good Hope, where under the name of Jones (as one of 
the residents informed me), he was the annoyance and detes- 
tation of the respectable inhabitants. 



34 

day, which was paid out of the parish rates. The 
inhabitants of Birmingham cannot have forgotten 
this striking fact ; and perhaps it may be well for 
them to preserve it carefully in remembrance, as an 
instance of the moral capabilities of some veracious , 
" discreet, and trusty persons/' residing within "jive 
miles " of the town. 

The inhabitants of Birmingham have long been 
distinguished by ingenuity, enterprise, and industry, 
and circumstances have likewise concurred to render 
them conspicuous in other points of view. It has 
been generally acknowledged that their various and 
extensive manufactures, as well as commercial impor- 
tance, entitle them to those political privileges, which 
would enable them to send representatives to the 
legislature of their country. May these privileges 
be speedily conceded ; and, if once possessed, may 
their exercise be marked by such a share of good 
sense, moderation, and discretion, as will afford a 
gratifying example to other populous towns who may 
enjoy the elective franchise, — illustrating the maxim 
that " knowledge is power," and also the genuine 
source of moral dignity and social order. 



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